Super typhoon loses strength as it barrels towards eastern Philippines
A super typhoon blamed for the deaths of at least four people on islands in the western Pacific Ocean has weakened after reaching Philippine waters and is expected to further lose strength as it approaches the country’s northeastern coast, officials said today.
A super typhoon blamed for the deaths of at least four people on islands in the western Pacific Ocean has weakened after reaching Philippine waters and is expected to further lose strength as it approaches the country’s northeastern coast, officials said today.
Esperanza Cayanan, an officer of the government’s weather bureau, said that as of this morning, Typhoon Maysak was 915 kilometres northeast of eastern Borongan city, packing winds of 175 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 210km/h.
It is moving northwest at 19km/h.
Officials said they had readied rescue teams and relief goods to prepare for Maysak’s landfall on Saturday evening or early Sunday in northeastern Aurora or Isabela provinces and warned tourists headed to beaches for the Easter holidays to exercise caution.
Storm surges of up to 3 metres tall are possible in the eastern coast, while moderate to heavy rains are expected within a 200-kilometre radius from the typhoon’s eye.
The weather bureau is set to issue a low-level storm warning later today for the eastern provinces, which will suspend sea travel. The military went on alert Wednesday in the northern Philippines.
Cayanan said the storm was expected to weaken further after making landfall, and that it was possible it would be downgraded to a storm or tropical depression as it crosses land.
The typhoon threatens holiday plans in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, where Filipinos travel to their home provinces and to resorts.
Meanwhile, residents in storm-wrecked areas of Micronesia appealed for help today as a clean-up began on the worst affected islands after Maysak swept through the region.
A state of emergency has been declared in Chuuk, the largest region in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) where five people were killed and houses and crops destroyed by Maysak.
“We can do with all the help we can get,” Courtney Stinnett at the Truk Stop Hotel dive shop on the main island of Weno in Chuuk state said.
The super typhoon took three days to cross the central Pacific archipelago before heading out to sea and towards the Philippines, but relief workers said it could be a year before some land was restored enough to plant crops again.
“The storm ripped the iron roofs off houses. About 95 per cent of the homes were damaged,” Stinnett said, adding that residents were gathering scattered sheets of iron to hastily make their wrecked homes rainproof.
“There are fallen trees and you can’t get through many back roads,” she said.
“There are two live aboards [vessels] which have significant damage after being swept on to the reef. The crew had to jump off and swim to land. Quite a few were injured but all survived.”
The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) sent an aircraft to survey the damage on Ulithi atoll which was hit hard when the eye of the storm passed over on Tuesday night with sustained winds of 260 km/h.
Most concrete structures withstood the fury but everything else was damaged, PMA Pacific administrator Melinda Espinosa said in an email.
“Because Ulithi is just a little above sea level, in some areas the sea rose, destroying crops and the soil. It will take time to desalinate the soil - approximately a year until the crops can be re-planted,” she said.
In Chuuk, Stinnett said they were reliant on ships to bring in relief supplies but they may first be diverted to the many small islands where residents lost their boats and had no way of going for help.
