A powerful typhoon left at least 31 people dead, knocked down power and communications in entire provinces and wreaked widespread destruction in the central Philippines, officials said yesterday. One local governor said her island has been “levelled to the ground”.
A powerful typhoon left at least 31 people dead, knocked down power and communications in entire provinces and wreaked widespread destruction in the central Philippines, officials said yesterday. One local governor said her island has been “levelled to the ground”. T yphoon Rai blew away Friday night into the South China Sea after rampaging through southern and central island provinces, where more than 300,000 people in its path were evacuated to safety in advance — a pre-emptive move officials say may have saved many lives. At its strongest, Rai packed sustained winds of 195kmph and gusts of up to 270kmph — one of the most powerful in recent years to hit the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago, which lies between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. The typhoon slammed into the country’s south-eastern coast on Thursday but the extent of casualties and destruction remained unclear two days after it hit, with entire provinces still without power and mobile phone connection. The government’s main disaster-response agency said at least 31 people were reported killed, many after being hit by falling trees, but it added it was still validating most of the deaths. At least three were injured and one was missing. Officials on the Dinagat Islands, one of the first provinces to be lashed by the typhoon’s ferocious winds, remained cut off yesterday due to downed power and communication lines. But its governor, Arlene Bag-ao, managed to post a statement on the province’s website to say that the island of about 180,000 “has been leveled to the ground.
