Typhoon Doksuri caused flooding, triggered landslides and cut power in the northern Philippines, where thousands remain stranded in ports or by roads blocked by debris, and authorities in China and Taiwan are preparing defenses against the storm.
(Bloomberg) — Typhoon Doksuri caused flooding, triggered landslides and cut power in the northern Philippines, where thousands remain stranded in ports or by roads blocked by debris, and authorities in China and Taiwan are preparing defenses against the storm.
The typhoon has so far affected more than 180,000 people in the Philippines, the Office of Civil Defense said Wednesday. Dozens of towns remain without electricity.
Nearly 16,000 people have been evacuated in the northern Philippine province of Cagayan, where Doksuri made landfall as a super typhoon, Rueli Rapsing, head of its disaster risk-reduction and management office, said in a briefing.
“The northwest portion of our province continues to be pummeled by strong winds and heavy rains. What we’re watching closely is the rise of water in tributaries,” he said, adding that authorities have yet to assess losses to farms and regional infrastructure.
The typhoon also damaged several airports in northern Philippines, including the Laoag gateway in Ilocos Norte, President Ferdinand Marcos’s home province, CNN Philippines reported.
Doksuri has maintained its strength with top, sustained winds of 175 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 240 kph, after making a second landfall over an island in northern Philippines, the weather bureau said in its 2 p.m. bulletin.
The storm is forecast to leave Philippine waters Thursday morning and cross the Taiwan Strait before hitting land again in Fujian, China on Friday, the bureau said.
The Philippines is one of the most natural disaster-prone countries in the world. About 20 cyclones pass through the the Southeast Asian nation each year, causing deaths and damage to agriculture, homes and infrastructure.
In October last year, more than 100 people died from floods and landslides triggered by storm Nalgae, which displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines.
The storm is already disrupting travel outside of the Philippines. More than 50 local flights and four international and cross-strait flights were canceled due to the typhoon as of Wednesday afternoon, according to Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration, and Eva Airways and China Airlines Ltd. warned passengers to check their flights.
In China, Xiamen Airlines canceled 32 flights scheduled for Thursday and Friday, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Taiwan, which hasn’t had a typhoon make landfall since 2019, announced school and office closures in various counties, including Hualien, Pingtung, Yilan and Kaohsiung. There are emergency operation centers in 11 cities and counties, the Central News Agency reported, while alerts have been raised for both land and sea.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the main chipmaker for Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp., and CPC Corp., which operates a massive LNG terminal, said they’re taking precautions against the storm.
Meanwhile, China’s National Meteorological Center raised its alert on Doksuri to red, the highest of its four-tier color-coded system for severe weather. It said Doksuri is expected to make landfall in Fujian and Guangdong coastal areas on Friday morning.
Doksuri will remain a severe to super typhoon and gradually move towards the coastal areas of eastern Guangdong and southern Fujian of China Thursday and Friday, according to the Hong Kong Observatory. The Philippines has ceased referring to Doksuri as a super typhoon, and its weather bureau said the storm should gradually weaken.
Hong Kong will issue standby signal 1 on Wednesday night, the lowest on a scale of five. The government also warned that the city’s air quality health risk index may reach “very high” or a “serious” level on Wednesday because of the storm.
–With assistance from Foster Wong, Ditas Lopez, Dominic Lau, Olivia Tam, Betty Hou, Cecilia Yap, Danny Lee and Adrian Kennedy.
(Adds details on typhoon’s impact, including from Philippine authorities.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.