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Published: Saturday October 3, 2009 MYT 11:20:00 AM
Updated: Saturday October 3, 2009 MYT 1:54:16 PM

Typhoon Parma changes direction


MANILA: Powerful winds toppled power poles and trees Saturday in the northern Philippines as the second typhoon in eight days bore down on the country.

Farther north, Taiwan began evacuating villages also in the path of the storm.

The Philippines is still reeling from a Sept 26 typhoon that caused the worst flooding in 40 years, killing 288.

Officials said the risk of another major disaster was easing because the new storm, Typhoon Parma, had changed direction slightly and was no longer headed for heavily populated regions of the main island of Luzon.

But heavy rain was falling across a swath of Luzon that is still flooded, and violent winds were battering the far-north province of Cagayan.

Trees were uprooted and power pylons toppled in the provincial capital of Tuguegarao, local government official Bonifacio Cuarteros told The Associated Press by telephone.

“We pray that we won’t have a worse outcome, but with this kind of situation, we cannot really say,” he said.

Parma was due to strike the Philippines’ northeastern tip on Saturday night, instead of hitting north-central Luzon on Saturday afternoon, as earlier forecast.

It was packing sustained winds that had also weakened slightly, to 108 mph (175 kph), down from 121 mph (195 kph) on Friday.

The better news for the Philippines was bad news for Taiwan, which issued a storm warning and began moving people out of villages in the southern county of Kaohsiung, said local official Lin Chun-chieh.

Flash flooding from the last typhoon to hit the Kaohsiung killed about 700 people in August.

Typhoon Ketsana last month damaged the homes of more than three million people in the Philippines. It went on to hit other Southeast Asian countries, killing 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.

It was part of more than a week of destruction in the Asia-Pacific region that has claimed more than 1,500 lives so far: an earthquake Wednesday in Indonesia; a tsunami Tuesday in the Samoan islands; and Typhoon Ketsana across Southeast Asia.

Earlier when there was warning of Typhoon Parma about to hit the northeast of Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide “state of calamity” and ordered mass evacuations of six provinces in the path of the typhoon.

Cedric Daep, a top disaster official in the Philippines’ Albay province, said officials there had evacuated almost 50,000 people to shelters on higher ground.

Police and the military were helping people to leave flood or landslide-prone areas across the north and east, where heavy rain fell on Friday.

Parts of the capital, Manila, were still awash from the worst floods in 40 years caused by Ketsana on Sept 26. Almost 300 people were killed and more than two million had swamped homes.

In Quezon City, where muddy brown water was still chest-deep, residents turned from cleaning up after Ketsana to trying to secure their belongings from the risk of more flooding.

“We do not know what to do or where we can go,” said resident Bebang De Los Santos. “We don’t have a way out and this is the only place that is safe, but we don’t have any shelter.”

In Albay, laundry worker Mely Malate fled with her husband and six children to an evacuation center, spurred by memories of a storm three years ago.

“During the last typhoon, we were trapped inside the house by the flood waters and we had to climb to the roof,” she said.

“We are scared whenever there is a storm. When we left this morning, the river was already higher than normal.”

Parma was forecast to cross the coast of the main island of Luzon north of Manila, packing sustained winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph), gusting up to 140 mph (230 kph).

If the sustained winds reach 133 mph (215 kph) Parma will get the official designation “super-typhoon,” the government’s weather bureau said.

It was expected to continue east into the South China Sea by Sunday, though it’s direction from there was uncertain.

As many as 20 major storms buffet the region each year.

In southern Taiwan, the county where about 700 died when Typhoon Morakot hit in August plans to evacuate several villages prone to flooding and mudslides if a warning for Parma is issued, said county chief Yang Chiu-hsing.

Earlier this week, the storm that flooded the Philippines, Ketsana, then hit Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; 293 died in the Philippines, 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.

Lake Laguna on the edge of the capital rose by more than 3.3 feet (one meter) as Ketsana passed and was in danger of spilling over into districts near Manila housing some 100,000 people, said Ed Manda, general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority.

At a briefing Friday evening, weather bureau administrator Frisco Nilo said a high-pressure system near Hong Kong had caused Parma to slow slightly and might cause it to change direction, though it was still likely to hit the main northern Philippine island of Luzon.-- AP

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