At least 14 dead as Typhoon Mangkhut hits the Philippines – Most powerful storm of 2018 so far targets Hong Kong and Hanoi

15 September 2018 (BBC News) – Some 14 people have been killed in a massive storm which brought destruction to the northern Philippines, a presidential adviser says.
Typhoon Mangkhut ripped through the Philippines’ main island of Luzon, and is now moving west towards China.
Almost all buildings in the city of Tuguegarao sustained some damage, a government official said, and communications were down in places.
The storm packed winds of 185km/h (115mph).
Four million people were in its path, and thousands were evacuated amid warnings of 6m (20ft) storm surges.
Francis Tolentino, a political adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte, said up to 14 people were killed as a result of the storm.
Two rescuers were killed trying to help people trapped in a landslide. Unverified reports say the body of a young girl was found in the Marikina river, which flows through Manila.
The evacuation centre in the coastal town of Aparri is also said to have been destroyed and phone networks are down.
The typhoon recalls memories of the deadliest storm on record in the Philippines – Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 – which killed more than 7,000. However, preparation and evacuation procedures have been improved since then. […]The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) billed the storm as the strongest tropical cyclone the world has faced so far this year. [more]

Typhoon Mangkhut: 14 killed as storm batters Philippines

By Aaron Favila and Joel Calupitan
15 September 2018
TUGUEGARAO, Philippines (AP) – Typhoon Mangkhut lashed the northern Philippines with destructive winds and heavy rain that set off landslides and destroyed homes on Saturday, leaving at least 12 people dead, as Hong Kong and other parts of southern China braced for the powerful storm.
The most ferocious typhoon to hit the disaster-prone Philippines this year slammed ashore before dawn in Cagayan province on the northeastern tip of Luzon island, a breadbasket that is also a region of flood-prone rice plains and mountain provinces with a history of deadly landslides.
More than 5 million people were at risk from the storm, which the Hawaii-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center downgraded from a super typhoon. Mangkhut, however, was still punching powerful winds and gusts equivalent to a Category 4 Atlantic hurricane when it hit the Philippines. […]About 87,000 people evacuated from high-risk areas of the Philippines. Tolentino and other officials advised them not to return home until the lingering danger had passed.“It’s still a life and death situation,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said by phone, citing past drownings in swollen rivers in mountain provinces after storms had passed.Storm warnings remained in effect in 10 northern provinces, including Cagayan, which could still be lashed by devastating winds, forecasters said. Thousands of people in the typhoon’s path had been evacuated.At daybreak in Cagayan’s capital, Tuguegarao, Associated Press journalists saw a severely damaged public market, its roof ripped apart and wooden stalls and tarpaulin canopies in disarray. Outside a popular shopping mall, debris was scattered everywhere and government workers cleared roads of fallen trees. [more]

At Least 12 Dead as Typhoon Mangkhut Hits the Philippines

By Martin Petty and Enrico Dela Cruz, with additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Joseph Radford and Ros Russell
14 September 2018
MANILA (Reuters) – A strong typhoon tore across the northern tip of the Philippines on Saturday, killing at least three people, wrecking homes and triggering landslides before heading toward Hong Kong and southern China by evening.Mangkhut entered the Philippines as a super typhoon in the early hours and ripped over the main island of Luzon with winds of more than 200 kph (125 mph) and torrential rains. Known locally as Ompong, Typhoon Mangkhut at one point hit gusts of 305 kph before it left the Philippines and moved across the South China Sea with reduced wind speeds. Hong Kong was braced for Mangkhut, with authorities expected to raise the second strongest typhoon signal between 11 pm and 2 am (1500 and 1800 GMT). The Philippine disaster agency said two rescue workers died while trying to free people trapped in a landslide in the mountainous Cordillera region, while police said a body had been found in a river in Manila. Mauricio Domogan, mayor of the city of Baguio, said three people were killed in landslides and six were missing. It was not clear if the three dead included the rescue workers. “They didn’t expect it would happen, that’s why they didn’t evacuate. Unfortunately it happened,” he told DZMM radio. […]

Mangkhut had been a category 5 storm for days since wreaking havoc in U.S. Pacific territories of Micronesia before edging toward the Philippines, where it is the 15th and strongest storm this year. The typhoon’s peak winds were stronger than those of Hurricane Florence in the United States after it piled into the Carolinas, before it was downgraded to a tropical storm. […]Standing crops in northern and central Luzon took a battering from winds and floods in what is the biggest region in the Philippines for growing rice, corn and vegetables. Faustino Dy, governor of Isabela province, said farmland had been hit and the extent of infrastructure damage was unclear. “The damage to our agriculture sector is huge. Our corn fields were flattened,” he said. [more]

At least 3 dead in Philippines as typhoon heads toward Hong Kong

14 September 2018 (Bloomberg) – For days now, Super Typhoon Mangkhut has been churning across the Pacific, keeping the millions of people potentially in its path on tenterhooks.The powerful cyclone is forecast to make landfall between the Philippine provinces of Cagayan and Isabela on Saturday morning, prompting Filipinos to brace for the worst. Five years ago, Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded struck the country and killed more than 6,300 people.Mangkhut is forecast to slam across vast swathes of farmland in northern Philippines, threatening food supply at a time when the nation is already grappling with the fastest inflation in Asia. The storm, which caused flooding and power outages in the U.S. territory of Guam, is set to subsequently head to Hong Kong, China and Vietnam. Taiwan is also at risk of heavy rains. […]Mangkhut may damage as much as 11 billion pesos ($203 million) of rice and corn in the Philippines, with the storm coming just before the start of harvest, according to the latest estimate of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol. Farmers were urged to harvest their crops early.“Economic activity will be impacted, but agriculture and fishing would be affected even more, hurting supply, and keeping the upside pressure on inflation” in the Philippines, said Chidu Narayanan, an economist at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore. “Inflation is likely to remain elevated,” he said, projecting average consumer price gains of 5 percent for this year against the central bank’s target of 2 percent to 4 percent. [more]

Most Powerful Typhoon of 2018 Set to Cause Disruption in Asia