Super Typhoon Man-yi has slammed into the Philippines, with the national weather forecaster warning of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening” impact as huge waves pounded the archipelago’s coastline.
More than 650,000 people fled their homes before Man-yi, which is the sixth major storm to batter the disaster-weary country in the past month, made landfall.
Man-yi brought maximum wind speeds of 195 kilometres (121 miles) an hour as it impacted the sparsely populated island province of Catanduanes as a super typhoon, the weather service said, with gusts reaching 325 kilometres an hour.
Waves up to 14 metres (46 feet) high pummelled the shore of Catanduanes, while Manila and other vulnerable coastal regions were at risk from storm surges reaching up to more than three metres over the next 48 hours, the forecaster said.
Man-yi could hit Luzon – the country’s most populous island and economic engine – as a super typhoon or typhoon on Sunday afternoon, crossing north of Manila and sweeping over the South China Sea on Monday.
At least 163 people have died in the five storms that pounded the Philippines in recent weeks, leaving thousands homeless and wiping out crops and livestock.
The government urged people on Saturday to heed warnings to flee to safety.
“If preemptive evacuation is required, let us do so and not wait for the hour of peril before evacuating or seeking help, because if we did that we will be putting in danger not only our lives but also those of our rescuers,” Marlo Iringan, the interior undersecretary, said.
In Albay province, Legazpi City grocer Myrna Perea was sheltering with her fruit vendor husband and their three children in a school classroom with nine other families after they were ordered to leave their shanty.
Conditions were hot and cramped – the family spent Friday night sleeping together on a mat under the classroom’s single ceiling fan – but Perea said it was better to be safe.
“I think our house will be wrecked when we get back because it’s made of light materials – just two gusts are required to knock it down,” Perea, 44, said.
“That’s why we evacuated. Even if the house is destroyed, the important thing is we do not lose a family member.”
Scientists have warned climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the south-east Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Evacuation centres were filling up on Catanduanes island in the typhoon-prone Bicol region, with the state weather forecaster warning on Saturday of “widespread incidents of severe flooding and landslides”.
More than 400 people were squeezed into the provincial government building in the capital, Virac, with new arrivals being sent to a gymnasium, the provincial disaster officer Roberto Monterola said.
“The Rawis gym has a history of typhoon damage so people are afraid to go there,” Monterola said.
“The upper walls are made of glass which could shatter if hit by a strong gust of wind and they could get injured.”
Monterola said he had dispatched soldiers to force about 100 households in two coastal villages near Virac to move inland due to fears storm surges could swamp their homes.
In Northern Samar province, the disaster officer Rei Josiah Echano lamented that damage caused by typhoons was the root cause of poverty in the region.
“Whenever there’s a typhoon like this, it brings us back to the medieval era, we go [back] to square one,” Echano said.
English (US)