Thousands displaced as Typhoon Koppu pummels northern Philippines
Super Typhoon Koppu makes landfall 01:14
Story highlights
- Around 15,000 people are taking shelter in evacuation centers, officials say
- "We've had extremely ferocious wind, torrential rain," says storm chaser in Philippines
- State media: Army reports destroyed houses in three towns cut off by landslides, floods
(CNN)Thousands
of residents of the northern Philippines were forced to flee Sunday as
Typhoon Koppu began its multiday battering of the region.
The
fierce storm is forecast to lumber over the country's main island of
Luzon at an excruciatingly slow pace and dump huge amounts of rain on
the rugged terrain, setting off floods and landslides.
Koppu
came ashore in the early hours of Sunday morning at super typhoon
strength, ripping the roofs off buildings and uprooting trees in the
coastal province of Aurora.
"Through
the night, we've had extremely ferocious wind, torrential rain," storm
chaser James Reynolds told CNN from the town of Maddela. "The building
I'm in -- the water's been coming in the windows."
Towns reportedly cut off by landslides, floods
Roads
and communications to three towns in Aurora province have been cut off
by flooding and landslides, including Casiguran, where the typhoon made
landfall, authorities reported.
"Based
on the report of the Philippine Army, there were many houses destroyed
and trees uprooted in the three towns," the official Philippines News
Agency said. The army and other agencies are trying to clear the routes
to Casiguran, which has about 25,000 inhabitants, and the other towns,
Dinalungan and Dilasag, it reported.
In
Baler, another town in Aurora, CNN Philippines reporter Paul Garcia
said there was flooding in several neighborhoods. Surprised local
residents said that while storms are common in the area, flooding is
not, Garcia reported.
Roughly 15,000 people are
taking shelter in evacuation centers, the Philippines' disaster
management agency said Sunday. That number is expected to rise as the
storm, known in the Philippines as Lando, crawls across northern Luzon.
No casualties have been reported so far, according to the agency.
The
storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 240 kph (150 mph) when it
slammed into the eastern coast of Luzon, according to the U.S.
military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center, although the Philippines'
national weather agency measured the winds as being significantly
weaker, at 185 kph. The typhoon has since lost some of its strength as
it has moved over land.
Huge rainfall expected
But much of the concern about Koppu's impact centers on the extreme amounts of rain it's expected to unleash.
"The
big story out of this storm is definitely going to be the rainfall
totals," said CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar. Some areas are
forecast to receive more than 1 meter (39 inches of rain) by the end of
Wednesday.
The typhoon is predicted to
dawdle across northern Luzon for several days because of a ridge of high
pressure over China blocking its progress farther north. That gives it
longer than usual to soak the region's mountains and swell its rivers,
threatening people who live downhill and downstream.
"That's
where the problem with the flash flooding comes in, because when you
have all of this rain that keeps coming down over the same places over
and over, that is likely to trigger mudslides and landslides in addition
to flash flooding problems in ... some of the low-lying areas,"
Chinchar said.
Officials reported dozens of flight cancellations, thousands of people stranded in ports and many municipalities without power.
'The bowling alley for typhoons'
Situated in the Western Pacific, the Philippines is frequently hit by typhoons.
"They're
located in the belt basically between the equator and the subtropics.
You might consider it the bowling alley for typhoons moving across the
Pacific," said Bob Henson, a weather and climate science blogger for
Weather Underground.
"It's considered to be the most vulnerable large nation on earth for tropical cyclones," he said.
The
deadliest storm to hit the country in recent years was Super Typhoon
Haiyan, which left more than 7,000 people dead or missing in November
2013.
Haiyan, one of the strongest
storms ever to make landfall, was a different beast from Koppu, however.
It generated a devastating storm surge that flattened entire
neighborhoods in the densely populated coastal city of Tacloban before
moving quickly over other areas of the central Philippines.
| CNN | - |
(CNN)
Thousands of residents of the northern Philippines were forced to flee
Sunday as Typhoon Koppu began its multiday battering of the region.
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