Philippines typhoon Hagupit evacuation stepped up
6 Dec BBC
About half a million people have fled coastal villages and evacuated
their homes in the Philippines as a powerful storm approaches the
archipelago.
Typhoon Hagupit, which weakened slightly on Friday night, is due to
make landfall on Saturday evening. It is on course for the Eastern and
Northern Samar provinces and the city of Tacloban, where thousands were
killed by Typhoon Haiyan a year ago.Gusts peaked at 230km/h (143mph) but
dropped to 195km/h (121mph) on Friday.
Thousands of passengers were left stranded after Philippine Airlines
and Cebu Pacific cancelled more than 150 flights to the central and
southern Philippines on Friday and Saturday, and sea travel services
were suspended.The BBC's Jonathan Head in the capital Manila said that
it is one of the largest peacetime evacuations the country has ever
seen.
He said people were being moved to higher ground and into more solid
buildings such as churches, schools and sports stadiums.
However, no-one is sure where the worst affected places will be
because typhoons change direction and intensity, our correspondent
adds.President Benigno Aquino, who met disaster agency chiefs on Friday
afternoon, has ordered food supplies to be sent to affected areas, as
well as troops and police officers to be deployed to prevent looting in
the aftermath.Local media reported Mr Aquino as saying there was “no
indication” for now that Hagupit would be as strong as Haiyan.
Haiyan known as Yolanda in the Philippines was the most powerful
typhoon ever recorded over land. It tore through the central Philippines
in November 2013, leaving more than 7,000 dead or missing.
Hagupit's huge diameter of 600km (370 miles) meant that about 50
million people, or half the nation's population, were living in
vulnerable areas, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman told AFP news
agency.
The latest update from Philippine weather authorities said that
Hagupit, which means “smash” in Filipino, was weakening slightly, though
it still has powerful gusts.It could bring storm surges up to one storey
high, as well as heavy rain and the risk of landslides, officials have
warned.
Schools and government offices are closed in some areas and there
were long queues at shops and petrol stations as people stocked up on
supplies.In Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people, many have taken shelter
in the sports stadium.”It's deja vu, but not the same as last year with
Haiyan,” local resident Mariano Tan Jr told the BBC.
“We're already prepared... we've stored basic commodities - water,
rice, beans, fuel. We're also prepared in case of a power cut.”We intend
to stay,” he added. “We survived last year, we will do it again
tomorrow. We will still stand our ground because no calamities can break
us apart.”
About 19,000 people from coastal villages are in 26 evacuation
centres, Tacloban's disaster office spokesman Ilderando Bernadas told
Reuters.He said that number was expected to double as the authorities
began forcing people to evacuate.Tacloban's Deputy Mayor Jerry Yaokasin
told the BBC's Newsday: “We haven't yet fully recovered from last year's
super-typhoon Haiyan and here we go again.
“It's stirring up a lot of emotions in our hearts and bringing back
so many painful memories of what happened during super typhoon Haiyan.”
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