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Super Typhoon Mangkhut claims first victims in the Philippines

By AFP
15 September 2018   |   9:35 am
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 of people from their homes.

Rescue workers clear a road of debris and toppled electric posts caused by strong winds due to super Typhoon Mangkhut as they try to reach Baggao town in Cagayan province, north of Manila September 15, 2018. Super Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into the northern Philippines, with violent winds and torrential rains, as authorities warned millions in its path of potentially heavy destruction.TED ALJIBE / AFP

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 of people from their homes.

Roughly four million people were in the path of destruction the storm slashed through the northern tip of Luzon island, leaving at least four 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.

The extent of the storm’s destruction began to emerge later on Saturday, with reports of rain-soaked hillsides collapsing, torrents of out-of-control floodwaters and people being rescued from inundated homes.

Just over 105,000 people fled their homes in the largely rural, agricultural region, seeking to escape the fury of the massive typhoon.

Mangkhut was packing sustained winds of 170 kilometres (105 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 260 km per hour as it left the Philippines.

An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.

The dead were two women killed in landslide, a girl who drowned and a security guard crush by a falling wall. In addition to the four killed in the Philippines a women was swept out to sea in Taiwan.

‘End of the world’
“Among all the typhoons this year, this one (Mangkhut) is the strongest,” Japan Meteorological Agency forecaster Hiroshi Ishihara told AFP on Friday.

“This is a violent typhoon. It has the strongest sustained wind (among the typhoons of this year).”

Survivors were traumatised by the confrontation with the monster typhoon.

“It felt like the end of the world… that was stronger than Lawin”, said Bebeth Saquing, 64, using the local name for Super Typhoon Haima, which was one of the most powerful storms of 2016.

“I did not sleep,” she told AFP by phone from her home, which stood up to Mangkhut’s pounding.

The country’s deadliest on record is Super Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in November 2013.

Poor communities reliant on fishing are some of the most vulnerable to fierce typhoon winds and the storm surges that pound the coast.

As the storm heads for China’s southern coast, Cathay Pacific said it expects more than 400 flight cancellations over the next three days.

The Hong Kong government said Mangkhut will pose “a severe threat to the region” as many residents in the city and neighbouring Macau stocked up on food and supplies.

The president of neighbouring Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, told citizens to be ready.

“The typhoon is powerful and even it’s not expected to make a landfall in Taiwan, we should be well prepared and not… take it lightly,” she wrote on Facebook.

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