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San Miguel, Philippines – Typhoon Noru left a trail of destruction in the northern province of the Philippines on Monday, killing at least eight people, including rescuers who rushed to save villagers trapped in floodwaters, officials said.
Police and authorities said five government rescuers drowned after a boat capsized after hitting a collapsing wall in the town of San Miguel, Bulacan state.
Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando told DZMM Radio Network: “This is really sad.”
Officials and local rescuers paid tribute to the rescuers on social media. By doing so, he demonstrated courage and heroism and fulfilled his duty to save others.”
The strongest typhoon to hit the country this year made landfall in eastern Quezon province on Sunday and weakened as it blew out into the South China Sea early Monday morning before heading to Vietnam, forecasters said.
Nearly 80,000 people were moved to emergency shelters on the main island of Luzon, some forcibly evacuated, according to disaster response officials.
Three other deaths were reported by police, including a Bulacan villager who drowned after refusing orders to leave his home by a swollen river. A missing farmer is found dead in a plantation hit by a flash flood, and an elderly villager dies after his home is hit by a landslide. Six fishermen have gone missing in Camarines Norte province, a disaster response official said at a news briefing.
In the heavily damaged town of Dingalan in Aurora province, more than 6,000 homes were damaged and a newly constructed shelter housing more than 200 displaced families was hit by heavy winds and rain. , no injuries were reported.
About 3,000 people were evacuated to safety in Metro Manila after heavy rains hit overnight. Although the morning sky was clear, classes and government work were suspended on Monday in the capital and suburban districts as a precautionary measure.
Across the typhoon-hit northern states of Aurora and Nueva Ecija, power outages continued on Monday and repair workers are working to restore electricity, Energy Secretary Rafael Rotila told President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a teleconference convened by the president. Evaluate damage.
Marcos Jr. praised authorities for evacuating tens of thousands of people and preventing more deaths before the typhoon struck, but Noru, who devastated central and southern states in December and expressed concern about how the storm quickly intensified and turned into a super typhoon.
Marcos Jr. later attended an aerial inspection of a typhoon-hit state in a rice-growing region that left many villages and roads flooded.
Vicente Marano, head of the Philippine Meteorological Agency, told the Associated Press on Sunday that Nord underwent an “explosive intensification” over the open Pacific Ocean before hitting the Philippines.
From Saturday’s sustained winds of 85 kilometers per hour (53 mph), Noru became a super typhoon in just 24 hours with sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour (121 mph) and gusts up to 240 kilometers per hour (149 mph). was. late sunday.
By noon on Monday, Noru had withstood winds of 130 kilometers per hour (81 miles per hour) and gusts of 160 kilometers per hour (99 miles per hour) as it moved northwest across the South China Sea to Vietnam, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
About 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippines each year. The archipelago is also located in the ‘Pacific Rim’, a region along much of the Pacific Rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian country one of the most disaster-prone in the world. to
Aaron Favila and Jim Gomez
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