Typhoon Hagupit evacuation steps up

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 06 Desember 2014 | 19.21

6 December 2014 Last updated at 04:31
Three children

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Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tacloban as people flee the area or wait in fear

About half a million people have fled coastal villages and evacuated their homes in the Philippines as a powerful storm approaches the archipelago.

Typhoon Hagupit, which weakened slightly on Friday night, is due to make landfall on Saturday evening.

It is on course for the Eastern and Northern Samar provinces and the city of Tacloban, where thousands were killed by Typhoon Haiyan a year ago.

It has weakened slightly but gusts are still peaking at 195km/h (120mph).

Thousands of passengers were left stranded after Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific cancelled more than 150 flights to the central and southern Philippines on Friday and Saturday, and sea travel services were suspended.

Jonathan Head

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Jonathan Head reports: "It will be a long trip, the weather is going to get pretty rough"

'Massive scale'

The BBC's Jonathan Head in the capital Manila said the Philippines was experiencing one of its largest ever peacetime evacuations.

He said people were being moved to higher ground and into more solid buildings such as churches, schools and sports stadiums.

However, no-one is sure where the worst affected places will be because typhoons change direction and intensity, our correspondent adds.

President Benigno Aquino, who met disaster agency chiefs on Friday afternoon, has ordered food supplies to be sent to affected areas as well as troops and police to be deployed to prevent looting in the aftermath.

Local media reported Mr Aquino as saying there was "no indication" for now that Hagupit, would be as strong as Haiyan.

Haiyan - known as Yolanda in the Philippines - was the most powerful typhoon ever recorded over land. It tore through the central Philippines in November 2013, leaving more than 7,000 dead or missing.

Hagupit's huge diameter of 600km (370 miles) meant that about 50 million people, or half the nation's population, were living in vulnerable areas, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman told AFP news agency.

Children in school that has been turned into a shelter

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Typhoon Hagupit: Key facts and figures

The latest update from Philippine weather authorities said that Hagupit, which means "smash" in Filipino, had weakened slightly, though it still had powerful gusts.

On Saturday it was churning towards eastern coasts with its eye 230km (145 miles) north-east of Borongan, in Eastern Samar province.

Residents of Eastern Samar reported rain was falling and power was fluctuating.

It could bring storm surges up to one storey high, as well as heavy rain and the risk of landslides, officials have warned.

Schools and government offices are closed in some areas and there were long queues at shops and petrol stations as people stocked up on supplies.

'Deja vu'

In Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people, many have taken shelter in the sports stadium.

"It's deja vu, but not the same as last year with Haiyan," local resident Mariano Tan Jr told the BBC.

"We're already prepared... we've stored basic commodities - water, rice, beans, fuel. We're also prepared in case of a power cut.

"We intend to stay," he added. "We survived last year, we will do it again tomorrow. We will still stand our ground because no calamities can break us apart."

Weather map showing predicted path of Typhoon Hagupit

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BBC Weather's John Hammond says Samar province is in the line of fire for the typhoon

About 19,000 people from coastal villages are in 26 evacuation centres, Tacloban's disaster office spokesman Ilderando Bernadas told Reuters.

He said that number was expected to double as the authorities began forcing people to evacuate.

Tacloban's Deputy Mayor Jerry Yaokasin told the BBC's Newsday: "We haven't yet fully recovered from last year's super-typhoon Haiyan and here we go again.

"It's stirring up a lot of emotions in our hearts and bringing back so many painful memories of what happened during super typhoon Haiyan."

The US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center had classified Hagupit as a super typhoon but downgraded it on Friday morning. It remains the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year.

Meteorologists had said there was a chance that Hagupit, known locally as Ruby, could veer north towards Japan and miss the Philippines altogether, but this scenario is increasingly seen as unlikely.

The Philippines gives its own names to typhoons once they move into Philippine waters, rather than using the international storm-naming system.

Are you in the region? How are you preparing for typhoon Hagupit? Send your stories to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

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