MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Typhoon Toraji unleashed flooding, toppled trees and caused power outages in the northern Philippines before weakening to a tropical storm and heading toward the South China Sea, officials said Tuesday as they prepare for another storm. that is approaching.
The Philippines has had to deal with various calamities caused by four consecutive typhoons and storms, including Toraji, which devastated the northern Luzon region – including extensive agricultural areas and communities – in less than a month. A storm forming in the Pacific could become a typhoon and hit the country on Thursday, forecasters said.
There were no reports of deaths from Toraji.
Authorities were still clearing roads blocked by fallen trees, power poles and small landslides caused by Toraji, to allow the passage of food packages and other government aid, and to rescue those who may be trapped in remote villages. officials said.
Disaster response contingents, including army, police and coast guard troops, have been struggling to respond to the aftermath of successive typhoons and storms, but President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assured Friday that help was on the way to the communities hit by Toraji, locally called Nika.
“Although there is still stormy weather and strong wind out there, they say they can still do it. They can still work to remove the trees that fell and the electric poles that were knocked down, so that our relief supplies can get through,” Marcos told reporters.
“We are already there and they are just waiting for the storm to allow them to get to work,” said Marcos, who decided not to attend the Asia-Pacific economic forum this week in Peru to oversee his government’s response to the storms’ aftermath.
In the northern province of Cagayan, where Marcos two days ago inspected damage caused by an earlier typhoon and led the distribution of food packages to rural villagers, officials said Toraji’s intense winds and torrential rains flooded 25 villages in six municipalities. . At least 22 bridges were impassable due to flooding, and 13 municipalities and the provincial capital of Tuguegarao City reported power outages.
Before Toraji hit the northeastern province of Aurora on Monday, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla ordered the evacuation of people in 2,500 northern villages expected to be hit by the typhoon, warning that Luzon’s mountains, valleys and plains Soaked by rain they were more susceptible to flash floods and landslides.
Schools closed and inter-island ferry services and domestic flights were suspended in provinces located on or near the Toraji route, the 14th weather disturbance to hit the Philippine archipelago this year.
The last two typhoons and a tropical storm before Toraji caused more than 160 deaths, damaged thousands of homes and farmland, and affected more than 9 million people, including hundreds of thousands who fled to emergency shelters. Toraji dumped the equivalent of a month or two of rain in just 24 hours in some places.
Overwhelmed, the Philippines received help from the United States, its long-time ally, and Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, to transport food, water and other aid to the hardest-hit northern provinces.
The Philippines is hit by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It is also frequently affected by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones on record, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, leveled entire villages and caused ships to run aground and crash into homes in the central Philippines.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
