Hundreds of families took refuge in schools and evacuation centres on Monday as Super Typhoon Ragasa battered the northern Philippines and southern Taiwan with relentless rains and gale-force winds.
The typhoon, gathering strength on a path toward southern China, was forecast to make landfall over the Philippines’ Babuyan Islands around midday.
The islands, thinly populated and remote, are located roughly 740 kilometres south of Taiwan in the Luzon Strait.
As of 8am (7am Thai time), the storm’s centre recorded maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 265 kph as it moved toward the Philippine archipelago, the national weather service reported.
“We are now experiencing strong winds here in northern Cagayan,” provincial disaster chief Rueli Rapsing told AFP, adding that authorities were bracing for “the worst.”
“Since the super typhoon will traverse Calayan, we are very focused on that area,” he said, referring to the far-north town in the province.
In Taiwan, fire department officer James Wu said small-scale evacuations were under way in mountainous areas of Pingtung County.
“What worries us more is that the damage could be similar to what happened during Typhoon Koinu two years ago,” he noted, recalling a storm that brought down utility poles and sent metal roofing sheets flying.
Across the Manila region and in 29 provinces, schools and government offices were closed Monday in preparation for the storm’s heavy rains.
Government weather forecaster John Grender Almario warned on Sunday that “severe flooding and landslides” were expected in northern areas of Luzon, the country’s main island.
The threat of flooding came just one day after thousands of Filipinos marched to denounce a corruption scandal involving unfinished or substandard flood control projects.
While demonstrations were mostly peaceful, clashes erupted by late afternoon as protesters threw rocks at police, resulting in more than 70 arrests.
The Philippines sits directly in the Pacific cyclone belt and endures an average of 20 storms and typhoons annually, leaving millions in vulnerable communities trapped in cycles of poverty.
Experts caution that tropical storms are becoming stronger as global temperatures rise due to human-induced climate change.
