Filipinos removed fallen trees and repaired damaged homes on Monday, after the sixth major storm to hit the Philippines in a month toppled ramshackle buildings, cut off power and killed at least eight people.
The National Weather Service had warned of a “potentially catastrophic” impact from Typhoon Man-Yi, which was a powerful typhoon when it struck over the weekend, but President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday that it was “not as bad as we feared.”
With maximum wind speeds of 185 kilometers (115 miles) per hour, the typhoon struck the island of Catanduanes late Saturday and the main island of Luzon on Sunday afternoon.
It uprooted trees, toppled power lines, crushed wooden houses and caused landslides.
“Although Bebeto was strong, the impact was not as bad as we feared,” Marcos said, according to an official transcript of his remarks to the media, using the local name Man Yi.
“We will now continue the operation to rescue those isolated areas and continue providing relief to those who have been displaced and have no way to prepare their own meals and no water supply,” Marcos said.
The death toll from the hurricane rose to eight.
They included a 79-year-old man who was killed in Camarines Norte after his motorcycle got stuck in a power line, police said.
Seven people died and three others were injured when a landslide buried their house in Luzon’s Nueva Vizcaya province, said Christine Falcon of the regional disaster agency. Agence France-Presse.
Provincial information officer Camille Guianan said power outages across the island province of Catanduanes could last for months after Man Yi toppled electricity poles. Agence France-Presse.
“Catanduanes has been hit hard by this hurricane – we need food packages, hygiene supplies and construction materials,” said Guianan.
He added, “Most of the houses that contained light materials were leveled to the ground, while the roofs, doors, and windows of some houses made of concrete were destroyed.”
In the coastal town of Baler in Aurora County, clean-up operations are underway to remove downed trees and debris blocking roads and waterways.
“Most of the houses here are made of light materials, so even now, before the inspection, we expect serious damage to many houses in the city,” disaster control official Neil Rojo said. Agence France-Presse.
“We also received reports of roofs blown away in the wind last night… It was the high winds that got us scared, not specifically the heavy rain.”
The storm weakens
Typhoon Man-Yi weakened significantly as it passed the mountains of Luzon and turned into a severe tropical storm as it swept into the South China Sea toward Vietnam on Monday.
More than a million people in the Philippines fled their homes ahead of the storm, which followed an unusual series of violent weather.
Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger storms.
At least 171 people died in the Philippines in storms last month, which left thousands homeless and destroyed crops and livestock.
About 20 major storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian country or its surrounding waters each year, killing dozens of people, but it is rare for such weather events to occur in such a small window.
Man-Yi also hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season – with most typhoons occurring between July and October.
This month, four storms gathered simultaneously in the Pacific Basin, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency Agence France-Presse This was the first time such an event had been observed in November since records began in 1951.