At least 4 dead as typhoon rips across Philippines

By Roy Ramos

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines

Philippine authorities confirmed Tuesday that at least four people were killed and hundreds of thousands evacuated as a strong typhoon tore through the archipelago’s eastern and central islands.

The state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA) quoted a regional office of the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council as saying the confirmed death toll had reached four after Typhoon Melor slammed Samar and Northern Samar provinces Monday.

Alexander Pama, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said nearly 800,000 people had been evacuated and more than 100 schools were turned into temporary evacuation centers.

According to the regional Council, the dead included a 31-year-old man who was hit by a galvanized iron roof in Allen town and a 38-year-old woman who drowned in Catarman, Northern Samar’s capital.

Meanwhile, an 83-year-old man collapsed while heading to an evacuation center in Lope de Vega town, while a 28-year-old man drowned.

The national Council’s morning bulletin said power lines and trees were toppled as heavy rains flooded several areas in eight provinces.

Typhoon Melor – locally known as Nona -- slammed western Mindoro province Tuesday morning after wreaking havoc in the eastern part of the archipelago following its landfall Monday morning.

The state weather bureau PAGASA said Melor had maintained wind speeds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) an hour as it crashed into Mindoro Oriental at 10.30 a.m. (0230GMT) Tuesday.

Aldczar Aurelio, PAGASA weather forecaster, told PNA that Melor is set to exit Mindoro in the afternoon as it moves toward the West Philippine Sea – the name Filipinos use for the South China Sea.

Aurelio said that the typhoon would weaken into a severe tropical storm between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning.

He added, however, that another cyclone could enter the Philippines later this week, as a low-pressure area was spotted 1,800 kilometers southeast of southern Mindanao island.

Classes remained suspended Tuesday at schools in the central Philippines while some offices were closed, and dozens of domestic flights and ferry services cancelled.

The Philippines suffers around 20 typhoons and storms each year, many of them deadly.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan -- one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded -- struck the country’s central islands, leaving more than 8,000 people dead, missing and injured.