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Typhoon Hagupit is making its way across the central Philippines after making landfall on the east coast overnight. The massive storm has winds as high as 210 kilometers per hour.
Local weather agency Pagasa said Sunday that the storm crashed into remote fishing communities of Samar Island tearing roofs off buildings and sending them flying into the Pacific Ocean.
[fwdevp preset_id=”8″ video_path=”qjr1PhtE9Yo”]A 65-year-old man and a one-year-old girl died from hypothermia, a municipal disaster risk management officer told the Bangkok Post, adding that a 35-year-old woman died from complications while giving birth and a 75-year-old woman drowned during the typhoon.
Two people were also injured in Negros Oriental province, the local civil defense office said.
More than 1 million people have already sought shelter in local churches, schools and public gymnasiums in about 30 provinces.
“We received reports of about a million people evacuating already. There is increased awareness to take early action and cooperate and [carry out] pre-emptive evacuation,” Reuters quoted Gwendolyn Pang, of the Philippine Red Cross, as saying in a television interview.
Heavy rains and vicious gusts caused by the typhoon have toppled trees, downed power lines and ripped off tin roofs. Meanwhile, power was cut across swathes of the central Philippine island Samar and the Leyte province.
“Typhoon Hagupit is triggering one of the largest evacuations we have ever seen in peacetime,” said Denis McClean, spokesman of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva.
Agencies/Canadajournal
