
      Homes flattened as typhoon roars through Philippines
| Reuters


      Homes flattened as typhoon roars through Philippines
| Reuters






 





 












Edition:
U.S.


Africa
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom


















Home

Business



Business Home
Davos
Deals
Business Video
Aerospace & Defense
Financial Institutions 
Autos
Reuters Summits




Markets



Markets Home
U.S. Markets
European Markets
Asian Markets
Global Market Data
Indices
Stocks
Bonds
Currencies
Comm & Energy
Futures
Funds
peHUB
Earnings
Dividends




World



World Home
U.S.
Special Reports
Reuters Investigates
Euro Zone
Middle East
China
Japan
Mexico
Brazil
Africa
Russia
India Insight
World Video




Politics



Politics Home
Supreme Court
Politics Video




Tech



Technology Home
Science
Tech Video
Top 100 Global Innovators
Environment




Opinion



Opinion Home
The Great Debate
Data Dive
Morning Bid




Breakingviews



Equities
Credit
Private Equity
M&A
Macro & Markets
Politics
Breakingviews Video




Money



Money Home
Lipper Awards
Global Investing
Unstructured Finance
Linda Stern
Mark Miller
John Wasik
James Saft
Analyst Research
Alerts
Watchlist
Portfolio
Stock Screener
Fund Screener
Personal Finance Video




Life



Health
Sports
Arts
Entertainment
Oddly Enough
Faithworld
Lifestyle Video




Pictures



Pictures Home
Reuters Photographers




Video











































Article
Slideshow
Video

























Homes flattened as typhoon roars through Philippines

By Rosemarie Francisco and Manuel Mogato

MANILA  
Sun Dec 7, 2014 11:00am EST






Tweet





Share this

Email
Print





























1 of 8. 
                                                Strong winds and waves brought by Typhoon Hagupit pound the seawall in Legazpi City, Albay province southern Luzon December 7, 2014.    
Credit: Reuters/Stringer





Related Video



Typhoon Hagupit whips through central Philippines
Sun, Dec 7 2014





Related News


Typhoon slams into Philippines, 1 million evacuatedSat, Dec 6 2014Swiss man overpowers rebel guard, escapes in PhilippinesSat, Dec 6 2014New Jersey tree-lighting event canceled under threat of protestSat, Dec 6 2014Typhoon Hagupit triggers massive evacuation in PhilippinesFri, Dec 5 2014Hundreds of thousands evacuated from path of Philippine typhoonFri, Dec 5 2014



Analysis & Opinion


E.ON turns from predator to prey in radical spin-off

Indian police storm religious leader’s compound to find six dead





Related Topics


World »
Environment »
Natural Disasters »






MANILA (Reuters) - A powerful, slow-moving typhoon ripped through the central Philippines on Sunday, bringing howling winds that flattened houses and toppled trees and power lines in areas still scarred from a deadly super-storm just over a year ago.
In the coastal villages of Dolores, on Samar island, where Typhoon Hagupit first made landfall on Saturday night, Mayor Emiliana Villacarillo said around 80 percent of homes were destroyed."Only the big houses were left standing," said Villacarillo, adding floods also washed away rice crops in what is a key growing region.  Officials confirmed at least three people had died due to the typhoon, including a resident of Dolores town who was killed by a falling coconut tree. "The devastation in homes is huge because of the strong winds," Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas told local radio DzBB from Samar. "Many people voluntarily returned to evacuation centers tonight, even more than those who fled to centers last night, because they do not have homes anymore."But Hagupit did not appear to have wreaked destruction on the same scale as last year's super typhoon Haiyan, in part because of a massive operation to evacuate residents from coastal and landslide-prone areas days before the storm hit.More than 1.2 million people had crowded into over 1,500 schools, civic centers, town halls, gyms and churches used as evacuation centers across the central Philippines, said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross.   Roxas said rescue teams cleared the highway to Dolores town of about 25 to 30 huge fallen trees. Some residents lined streets asking for food, water and other supplies. Hagupit, which days earlier had reached category 5 "super typhoon" strength as it churned across the Pacific Ocean, weakened on Sunday to category 2 as it made a second landfall at Cataingan town in the south of Masbate island.There were no initial reports of the kinds of storm surges that were so destructive during Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 7,000 people across the central Philippines."Structural damage was caused mostly by wind, not by storm surge," said presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte.POWER CUTPower was cut across most of Samar and nearby Leyte province, including Tacloban City, which accounted for about half the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan in November last year. Power and communications were also down in Masbate, parts of Cebu island and some southern provinces of the main island Luzon.Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co's mobile arm, Smart Communications, said about 5 percent of its service area was cut by strong winds.General Gregorio Catapang, head of the military, said nearly 2,000 soldiers were clearing the roads and two airports on Samar to bring in food trucks and aircraft.  The typhoon was crawling west northwest at 10 kph (6 mph), with sustained winds of 140 kph (86 mph) and gusts of up to 170 kph (105 mph), the Philippine weather bureau PAGASA said.The weather bureau said Hagupit - which means "lash" in Filipino - was following its predicted path through the archipelago's central belt, slightly north of areas devastated by Haiyan last year.It was hovering 50 km (31 miles) northwest of Masbate City in the center of the island, and was expected to make a third landfall on the small island of Sibuyan early on Monday before passing around 120 km south of the capital Manila, PAGASA said.TACLOBAN SPAREDAlfred Romnualdez, mayor of Tacloban, said although more than 48,000 residents had fled to shelters, damage to the city appeared to have been minor."Thank God, the typhoon spared us and we have no reported casualties," Romualdez told Reuters. "By the end of the day we expect the people to return to their homes from shelter areas."By Sunday evening, people were also returning to their homes from shelters in Leyte island and southern Luzon.Environment and humanitarian groups are hoping the typhoon would spur action at U.N. climate talks in Lima, where almost 200 nations are meeting to work out an accord to slow global warming, due at a summit in Paris in a year's time."My country is under water, farms have been wiped away, homes destroyed, families separated," Shubert Ciencia of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and a member of global relief organization Oxfam, said in Lima.An Oxfam report in November showed Asia is highly vulnerable to increasingly severe and frequent weather extremes and woefully underprepared to manage growing crises. (The story corrects Tacloban mayor's last name in paragraph 17) (Reporting by Rosemarie Francisco and Manuel Mogato in Manila and Alister Doyle in Lima)
FILED UNDER: 
World
Environment
Natural Disasters







Tweet this


Link this

Share this

Digg this

Email
Print
Reprints

































					Davos



 

Swedish central bank should consider weakening currency: Borg
DAVOS, Switzerland  - Sweden's central bank should consider steps to weaken the crown to keep the economy competitive after the European Central Bank launched substantial bond-buying on Thursday, former finance minister Anders Borg told Reuters.

Serbia's Vucic says in no doubt over new IMF deal
| 

Novartis CEO says reviewing Swiss costs after franc shock


» More from Davos










Trending On Reuters

Pictures of the Day Our top photos from the last 24 hours.   Slideshow  Along the east Ukraine frontClashes in BenghaziBest photos of 2014 






 Follow Reuters  Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube  













































 



 
 

 
 

 







  


Edition:
U.S.


Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom




Back to top














Reuters.com

Business
Markets
World
Politics
Technology
Opinion
Money
Pictures
Videos
Site Index

More from Reuters

Reuters News Agency
Brand Attribution Guidelines
Delivery Options
Support & Contact

Support
Corrections


Connect with Reuters

Twitter  
Facebook  
LinkedIn  
RSS  
Podcast  
Newsletters  
Mobile

About

Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Advertise With Us
AdChoices
Copyright



 



Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider



An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution



A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance



Our next generation legal research platform



Our global tax workstation



Thomsonreuters.com
About Thomson Reuters
Investor Relations
Careers
Contact Us





Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.





























