MANILA: Thousands of people sought shelter and ports shut down in the Philippines on Monday, officials said, as the disaster-weary nation was struck by another typhoon \u2014 the fourth in less than a month.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Toraji hit near Dilasag town, about 220 kilometers (140 miles) northeast of the capital, Manila, the national weather agency said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting hit with strong winds and heavy rain. Some trees are being toppled and power has been cut since yesterday,\u201d Merwina Pableo, civil defense chief of Dinalungan town near Dilasag, said.<\/p>\n
Rescuers said around 7,000 people were moved from coastal areas as well as flood-prone and landslide-prone areas in Aurora and Isabela, the first two provinces to be struck before Toraji plowed inland to the mountainous interior of the main island of Luzon.<\/p>\n
In all, the government ordered 2,500 villages to be evacuated on Sunday, though the national disaster office does not have the total number of evacuees as of Monday.<\/p>\n
In the landfall area of Dilasag, school teacher Glenn Balanag, 31, filmed the onslaught of the howling 130 kilometers an hour winds, which violently shook coconut trees around his rural home.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig trees are falling and we heard the roofs of some houses were damaged. The rain is continuing and a river nearby is rising,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The national weather agency warned of severe winds and \u201cintense to torrential\u201d rainfall exceeding 200 millimeters (eight inches) across the north of the country, along with a \u201cmoderate to high risk of a storm surge\u201d \u2014 giant waves up to three meters (10 feet) high on the north coast.<\/p>\n
Schools and government offices were shut in areas expected to be hit hardest by the latest typhoon.<\/p>\n
Nearly 700 passengers were stranded at ports on or near the typhoon\u2019s path, according to a coast guard tally on Monday, with the weather service warning that \u201csea travel is risky for all types or tonnage of vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll mariners must remain in port or, if underway, seek shelter or safe harbor as soon as possible until winds and waves subside,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Aurora and Isabela officials said the main impact appeared to be downed trees and power pylons that blocked major roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to send people out yet to investigate. I do not want them to be caught out by powerful gusts,\u201d said Constante Foronda, Isabela\u2019s disaster response chief.<\/p>\n
The typhoon was forecast to blow out to the South China Sea late Monday, the weather service said.<\/p>\n
Aurora provincial disaster response chief Elson Egargue said he pushed out crews to clear roads after Toraji left the province in early afternoon.<\/p>\n
After Toraji, a tropical depression could also potentially strike the region as early as Thursday night, weather forecaster Veronica Torres said.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Man-yi, currently east of Guam, may also threaten the Philippines next week, she added.<\/p>\n
Toraji came on the heels of three cyclones in less than a month that killed 159 people.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Typhoon Yinxing slammed into the country\u2019s north coast, damaging houses and buildings.<\/p>\n
A 12-year-old girl was crushed to death in one incident.<\/p>\n
Before that, Severe Tropical Storm Trami and Super Typhoon Kong-rey together left 158 people dead, the national disaster agency said, with most of that tally attributed to Trami.<\/p>\n
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year.<\/p>\n
A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA: Thousands of people sought shelter and ports shut down in the Philippines on Monday, officials said, as the disaster-weary nation was struck by another typhoon \u2014 the fourth in less than a month. Typhoon Toraji hit near Dilasag town, about 220 kilometers (140 miles) northeast of the capital, Manila, the national weather agency said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-442903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n