MANILA (AFP) – Hundreds of people fled yesterday as Typhoon Man-Yi bore down on the Philippines, threatening yet more destruction even as rescuers tried to reach people stranded on rooftops by the last tropical cyclone.
Five major storms have battered the archipelago nation in the last three weeks, killing at least 163 people and prompting the United Nations to request USD32.9 million in aid for the worst-affected regions.
Typhoon Usagi hit the north of the country on Thursday, and yesterday rescuers were still scrambling to reach residents stranded on rooftops in northern Luzon island, where herds of livestock were devastated. At the same time authorities began evacuating hundreds of people from the island of Catanduanes, which will likely be the first landmass hit directly by Typhoon Man-yi, according to the weather service.
“We expect thousands more to evacuate in the hours before landfall,” operations chief of the Catanduanes civil defence office Roberto Monterola told AFP. “We do not have enough evacuation centres, so some of them will be sheltering with neighbours who own houses made of stronger materials.”
On Thursday, flash floods driven by Usagi struck 10 largely evacuated villages around the town of Gonzaga in Cagayan province, local rescue official Edward Gaspar told AFP by phone. “We rescued a number of people who had refused to move to the shelters and got trapped on their rooftops,” Gaspar added.
While the evacuation of more than 5,000 Gonzaga residents ahead of Usagi saved lives, he said two houses were swept away and many others were damaged while the farming region’s livestock industry took a heavy blow.
