Typhoon Doksuri lashed the northern Philippines from late Tuesday, cutting power to much of Cagayan province, while Taiwan canceled air raid drills and China raised its typhoon alert to the highest level.
(Bloomberg) — Typhoon Doksuri lashed the northern Philippines from late Tuesday, cutting power to much of Cagayan province, while Taiwan canceled air raid drills and China raised its typhoon alert to the highest level.
“We’re being pummeled here by strong winds and heavy rains,” Cagayan province Governor Manuel Mamba told DZBB radio. He said there were no casualties reported so far, with the province having evacuated 12,000 people, mostly from coastal areas.
Power remains out in much of the province, and authorities have yet to assess damage to farms and regional infrastructure, he said. Radio DZBB reported that strong winds had cut power, destroyed houses and felled trees in Cagayan. Some residents in Mountain Province were asked to evacuate to higher ground, ABS-CBN News reported.
Doksuri has maintained its strength with top winds of 175 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 240 kph, making another landfall over an island in northern Philippines, the weather bureau said in an 11 a.m. bulletin. The storm is forecast to leave Philippine waters Thursday morning and cross the Taiwan Strait before making landfall in Fujian, China on Friday, the bureau said.
The presidential office said it is preparing over 173 million pesos ($3.2 million) in stand-by funds, and deploying rescue teams to help those affected. 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 massive storm has already entered the coastal waters of Bashi Channel, posing a threat to Taiwan’s Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taitung, Pingtung, and Hengchun Peninsula, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.
Taiwan issued a land alert warning for Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taitung, Pingtung, and the Hengchun Peninsula, and a sea alert warning for vessels navigating and operating in the Bashi Channel, waters to the southeast and northeast of Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait and waters near Dongsha Island.
Some 11 cities and counties across the island have set up emergency operation centers on Tuesday, with a series of precautionary measures rolled out across the country, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported. And after holding air raid drills in northern Taiwan earlier this week, the Ministry of National Defense canceled plans for more drills in the east today.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the main chipmaker for Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp., said it’s taking routine precautions at all its fabs. CPC Corp. said it’s also checked equipment, power reserves and drainage systems at its Yung-An LNG terminal.
“In the recent three-to-four years, there were no typhoons infringing on Taiwan, but before that almost every year we had typhoons,” a CPC spokesperson said, adding that the company will systematically follow standard operating procedures.
But rocky seas may complicate efforts to secure shipping containers that washed overboard after the sinking of the Palau-flagged Angel near Kaohsiung a few days ago.
Authorities have already moved more than 300 floating, empty containers to safe areas. Since yesterday morning, authorities had moved 40 of the remaining 110 containers that needed to be relocated, according to a section chief at the transport ministry surnamed Duan. Some containers have been marked and assessed as low-risk.
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.
The Hong Kong Observatory said it will issue the typhoon warning signal number 1 some time today. That’s the lowest warning on a scale of five.
–With assistance from Foster Wong, Sing Yee Ong, Ditas Lopez, Dominic Lau, Olivia Tam, Betty Hou and Cecilia Yap.
(Adds China’s latest alert, details of storm throughout.)
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