A mighty typhoon has made landfall in the eastern Philippines, with forecasters predicting it will bring torrential rains throughout a wide area of the country by Saturday.
Typhoon Vongfong, the first named storm to hit the West Pacific, is expected to batter the Philippines with maximum sustained winds of 150km per hour (93 mph) and gusts of up to 185 km per hour (115 mph).
Authorities are faced with the difficulties of evacuating people while keeping emergency shelters from being overcrowded to avoid spreading coronavirus.
The storm has the potential to affect Luzon, the country’s largest island, where most of its 60 million-strong population remains under lockdown to control the spread of the virus. The capital, Manila, is located there.
Harry Roque, a spokesman for Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte, told The New York Times: “Definitely this is going to add to our emergency situation. While the areas expected to be hit by the typhoon are not heavily ravaged by Covid-19, we have set some guidelines.”
However, overcrowding in emergency shelters is a common problem when natural disasters arise, making social distancing impossible. The archipelago, located in a typhoon belt, is hit by around 20 storms annually, and experiences volcanic eruptions and earthquakes on a regular basis.
Mr Roque that families taken to evacuation areas would have to stick to social distancing guidelines, but conceded that “enforcing that would be a challenge”.
Other villages in Typhoon Vongfong’s path in the Eastern Samar province are free of coronavirus infectins, said provincial governor Ben Evardone. He told the AP news agency that all emergency shelters have been turned into quarantine facilities in preparation for outbreaks, but may now have to be rearranged back into evacuation centres.
The typhoon made landfall in San Policarpo, where more than 14,000 people live. There have been no immediate reports of injuries or fatalities.
The government weather agency warned that “along with large swells, this storm surge may cause potentially life-threatening coastal inundation”. It also added that travelling by sea would be dangerous in regions expected to be hit by the typhoon.
Typhoon Vongfong’s name means “wasp” in Vietnamese. It was the most intense tropical cyclone worldwide in 2014, when it killed at least nine people in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Additional reporting by AP
