LIGAO, Philippines –
A powerful typhoon killed three people and threatened to bring heavy rain and wind to the heavily populated capital of the Philippines as it dragged the islands off the island on Monday, destroying the Christmas holidays.
Typhoon Nouxton landed on the eastern island of Catanduos on Sunday and is expected to move westward to the center of the country, packing winds 215 kilometers (134 miles) per hour.
A couple was reported to have died from flooding, while an elderly man pressed by a fallen wall, stormed the governor of the eastern province of Albay Al Bichara, said on local television.
More than 383,000 people have fled their homes and more than 80 domestic and international flights have been canceled because the typhoon, which was unusually late, destroyed Christmas celebrations in Christian countries, the ministry said.
The government weather station said Nock 10 was moving northwest at an average speed of 20 kilometers per hour and is expected to affect Manila and the surrounding area later in the day.
A busy metropolis of about 13 million is a regular holiday after the Christmas weather of quiet revelers living indoors when the storm approaches.
The defense ministry said the capital could suffer “intense rain, flash and severe winds” and rescue boats are ready to deploy to prevent river flooding.
“Our local disaster committee is red alert,” Mina Marasigan, a spokesman for the country’s disaster monitoring committee, said in advance of the rescue and relief (road) removal facility in Manila.
Sunday’s Coast Guard ordered beachheads south of Manila to clear holidaymakers on Monday, while residents of the capital’s waterfront slums were warned to leave their homes.
The storm cut off millions of electricity and forced government agencies to order the evacuation of the entire community in the eastern part of Bicol, the first snowstorm in the Christmas season.
In the town of Bicol, in Limoges, many streets and farms are in the depths of the ankle, and some families are still caked in the mud left by the flood.
Erna Angela Pintor, a 20-year-old masseuse, said she and her family had spent a night of fear in Christmas as the wind blew through part of the roof.
She recalls that their neighbors living near the river bank sought shelter at home because the water rose to their chests, despite the luck of her own family.
“The flood (last night) only arrived at our knees, thank you well, the current is not so strong,” she told AFP.
“It should be a celebration, but we can not celebrate, it is a sad Christmas to us, no one (in the family) died, but a lot of our neighbors’ homes were washed away.
Marasigan said hundreds of people in Bicol celebrate Christmas at the evacuation center, and many people have to do the emergency food package.
Some local officials offer roast pork – the traditional Philippine festive fare – inducing tripartite members to evacuate the center, Marasigan said.
“Government workers in the Bicol region, especially those involved in disaster relief and operations, work 24 hours a day, even on Christmas Day, because Typhoon Nina (Nock-Ten’s local name) maintains its strength and continues to pose a serious A threat to the Bicol region, “President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman Martin Andanar said in a statement.
About 20 typhoons or smaller storms hit the Philippines each year, routinely killing hundreds, and Bicol is often the first hit.
When the Super Typhoon Petrel struck the central Philippines in November 2013, waves like the tsunami destroyed the city of Tacloban and the surrounding area, causing 7,350 deaths or disappearances.
