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Associated Press

A powerful typhoon was lashing the northernmost islands of the Philippines on Monday, prompting officials to evacuate villagers, shut down schools and inter-island ferries and warn of “potentially very destructive” damage to coastal villages.
Typhoon Krathon was last tracked over the coastal waters of Balintang island off the provinces of Cagayan and Batanes with sustained winds of up to 175km/h (109mph) and gusts of up to 215km/h (133 mph), according to government forecasters.
The slow-moving Krathon was blowing westwards and could strengthen into a super typhoon when it veers northeastward Tuesday towards Taiwan, they said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage
Guilmar Cabejo, a police officer on the island of Sabtang in typhoon-prone Batanes, said the streets were deserted in the town of more than 1,800 people as the ferocious wind rattled roofs, walls and trees.
Nobody could stand normally outside in this wind
Guilmar Cabejo, local policeman
“There’s nobody outside, zero, because the wind is so strong,” Cabejo said over the phone. “Nobody could stand normally outside in this wind, it will force anybody down to the ground.”
Residents, locally renowned for their resilience against seasonal storms, strengthened their roofs with ropes, covered windows with wooden boards and secured their fishing boats away from the sea two days before the typhoon hit, he said.
The weather agency warned of “moderate to high risk of life-threatening storm surge” in the next 48 hours in the coastal villages of Batanes, the nearby Babuyan islands and Cagayan province and said fierce winds could rip off roofs, topple trees, damage farmlands and whip up high waves.
“The situation is potentially very destructive to the community,” it said.
Hundreds of villagers were evacuated away from the coast and flood-prone communities in Cagayan province, where power outages were reported. Classes in all levels were suspended on Monday in several northern provinces as a precaution, officials said.


Sea voyages were also halted in northern towns and provinces being battered or threatened by the typhoon, locally called Julian, officials said.
About 20 storms and typhoons batter the Philippines each year. The archipelago also lies in the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones in the world, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines.


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The Philippines

A Filipino forecaster points at an electronic board showing the strength of Typhoon Krathon on Monday. Photo: AP

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Hongkongers will experience hot weather on Monday and Tuesday. Photo: Eugene Lee

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Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner Jnr at the Asian Defence and Security Exhibition in Pasay City on Wednesday. Photo: Jeoffrey Maitem

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Young women using portable fans to seek relief from the heat while walking outside Tokyo’s Shinjuku station. Photo: AFP

People use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun on a hot summer day in Tokyo’s Ginza district. Photo: Reuters

A tourist cools off with cooling mist at Sensoji temple in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

News

Asia

Southeast Asia

The slow-moving Krathon was blowing westwards and could strengthen into a super typhoon, government forecasters said


The slow-moving Krathon was blowing westwards and could strengthen into a super typhoon, government forecasters said.


Extreme weather

Weather

Environment