Keystone-SDA
Powerful Typhoon Kalmaegi crosses the Philippines on Tuesday after making landfall in a region already hit by some of the deadliest storms in the country. More than 150,000 people have been evacuated there in recent days.
(Keystone-ATS) The typhoon, with winds of 150 km/h and gusts of up to 205 km/h, made landfall for the first time on Monday evening before 11:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. in Switzerland) in the Dinagat Islands province, which is part of the Visayas archipelago in the east of the country, the national meteorological service said.
Just an hour earlier in Dinagat, Miriam Vargas, 34, sat in the dark with her two children after the storm had knocked out the power.
“At the moment there is heavy rain and strong winds. We are sitting on the stairs and praying while trying to assess the strength of the typhoon,” the single mother told AFP.
“The wind is whistling and we can hear objects falling. The power went out about an hour ago and we can’t see anything anymore.”
Around 10,000 to 15,000 people were sheltered in the Dinagat Islands, according to its governor, Nilo Demerey.
Joy Conales, a disaster management official, said residents in the town of Loreto had been asked to evacuate to higher ground. The town has a one-story high seawall intended to protect the city center from waves.
Roel Montesa, a disaster management official in Leyte province, north of Dinagat, said earlier that evacuations were underway in Palo and Tanauan.
These two districts, populated in total by 140,000 people according to the last census in 2024, had already been hit hard in 2013 by super-typhoon Haiyan, which killed at least 6,000 people.
More storms expected
Thousands of shelters have also taken place since Sunday on the neighboring island of Samar, where waves of three meters were expected, according to a civil defense official, Randy Nicart.
“Some local governments are resorting to forced evacuations,” he said.
local time on Monday, “nearly 156,000 people” had been preemptively evacuated, Rafaelito Alejandro, deputy administrator of the civil defense office, said at a press conference.
Every year, around 20 storms or typhoons hit or approach the Philippines, with the poorest parts of the country usually being hit hardest.
After Kalmaegi, meteorologist Charmaine Varilla expects “three to five” other storms to hit the Asian country by the end of the year, she explains to AFP.
The Philippines was hit in September by deadly storm Bualoi and typhoon Ragasa.
According to experts, climate change is favoring more frequent and more intense extreme weather events.