Super Typhoon Mangkhut smashed through the Philippines on Saturday, as the biggest storm to hit the region this year claimed the lives of its first victims and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.
S uper Typhoon Mangkhut smashed through the Philippines on Saturday, as the biggest storm to hit the region this year claimed the lives of its first victims and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.
Roughly four million people – a quarter of whom live on a few dollars a day – were in the path of destruction that the storm slashed through the northern tip of Luzon island on Saturday, leaving at least eight dead.
“As we go forward, this number will go higher,” Ricardo Jalad, head of the national civil defence office, told reporters, referring to the death toll.
As the powerful storm left the Southeast Asian archipelago and barrelled towards densely populated Hong Kong and southern China, Philippine authorities began sending search teams to remote areas hit by communication and power outages.
In the northern town of Baggao, the storm had collapsed houses, torn off roofs and downed power lines. Shell-shocked villagers could be seen picking through the debris from their homes.
B ut the full extent of the storm’s destruction was only beginning to be known, with reports of dozens of rain-soaked hillsides collapsing, torrents of out-of-control floodwaters and people being rescued from inundated homes.
More than 105,000 people fled their homes in the largely rural agricultural region, which is one of the nation’s top producers of corn and rice.
M angkhut was packing sustained winds of 145 kilometres (90 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 180 km/h early Sunday as it hurtled across the sea towards China’s heavily populated southern coast.
