DARAGA, Philippines –
Infants, toddlers and the elderly were loaded on military trucks in the downpours of the Philippines on Sunday, with tens of thousands of people fleeing a powerful typhoon and rolling towards a disaster-prone archipelago.
Officials warn that up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) of coastal waves, landslides and flash floods can be seen as the result of the closure of the Nock 10 on the Bicol peninsula and nearby islands.
In one of the largest Christian holidays, more than 100,000 people have left their homes and, in the face of typhoon threats, officials say hundreds of thousands may be displaced.
A governor in the evacuation center to provide roast pig, in order to lure people to give up celebrations at home.
“The flood scares me, and whenever I hear an upcoming typhoon, I want to vomit,” 68-year-old Criselda Buenvenuto told AFP that she joined a neighbor to shelter in a school in Santo Domingo.
The unch ed widow lived alone in the kitchen of her house, and the rest were destroyed in a typhoon ten years ago, killing more than a thousand people.
In the village of Alcala, about 100 babies, young children, parents and old people were trucked to another school on the slopes of the active Manon volcano. The rain and strong winds shook the trees at noon.
“There’s a lot of ashes on the slopes (Manon). Heavy rains can drive them out and bury our homes in the mud,” says Alberto Lindo, an agricultural village official, with 3,300 people.
“We went with loudspeakers to instruct our people to eat breakfast, pack and board military trucks,” he added.
The Philippine and international weather services said Nok 10, named after a bird found in Laos, hit Bicol on Sunday night in the main southern Luzon.
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts winds of 231 kilometers (144 miles) per hour and 278 kilometers of gusts when the Nock 10 landed on the now isolated island of Catanduños.
The government forced more than 12,000 residents to leave the coast of Catanduones, provincial deputy governor Shirley Abundo said.
“Please evacuate as soon as you have time,” she said in a live call from ABS-CBN.
Near Catanduanes in the province of Camanines, Governor Miguel Villafuerte said on his Facebook page that nearly 90,000 residents had been removed from their homes as part of his “zero casualties” target.
In another article on Twitter, the governor hinted at the difficulty of persuading people to recognize the dangers of approaching Christmas celebrations.
“Please evacuate, we will provide roast pig in the evacuation center,” he said.
Weather forecasters say the typhoon will eventually affect nearly 42 million people in the region, including the capital of Manila Monday.
Bicol’s civil defense officials say nearly half a million people in the region are in jeopardy and need to move out.
Military and local governments sent Christmas trucks to clear coastal communities and other areas in the previous storms that suffered landslides or outbreaks of floods.
About 20 typhoons or smaller storms hit the Philippines each year, routinely killing hundreds, and Bicol is often the first hit.
It is to cause disaster response to maximize, reduce casualties proud.
Nock 10, which will arrive outside the normal typhoon season, causes all ferry services and commercial flights to be suspended in Bicol.
At the port of Tabarko, stranded passengers sat in the ferry terminal building, with their luggage and children, staring at the vast sea, and some wanting to pass through Catanduos.
Manila’s rescue workers and the northern flood-prone Central Luzon Plain have already started on standby, evacuation centers open, food and other rations stored.
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.
A violent, tsunami-like wave called the storm surge destroys the city of Tacloban and the surrounding area. When the Super Typhoon Swallow raids the central Philippines in November 2013, 7,350 people were killed or missing.
