MANILA: A severe tropical storm on Friday whipped the Philippines’ northernmost provinces with gale-force winds and heavy rains, officials said.
Storm Atsani did not make landfall as earlier projected, but crossed over Misanga Island, which is part of Batanes province, a group of islands in the northern Philippines, the weather bureau said.
The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 95 kilometres per hour (km/h) and gusts of up to 115km/h as it moved west-north-west at 20km/h.
The weather bureau warned the storm could trigger flash floods and landslides in Batanes and nearby Cagayan province.
Batanes was once called the “typhoon alley” of the Philippines because of frequent cyclones that hit it.
Due to that, most of its houses are made from stones.
Last weekend, the strongest typhoon this year battered the eastern Philippines, killing 24 people and affecting more than 1.6 million people, including over 408,000 forced to flee their homes.
Typhoon Goni triggered floods and mud flows that buried houses, and brought catastrophic winds that destroyed thousands of houses and infrastructure in the affected areas. It was the strongest typhoon to hit the country since Typhoon Haiyan battered the eastern and central provinces in November 2013, killing more than 6,300 people and displacing over 4 million.
The Philippines is battered by an average of 20 cyclones every year.
Meanwhile, Taiwan was gearing up for potentially dangerous wind and heavy rain as Atsani approached the south of the island. Atsani, in the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, was about 100 kilometres south-east of Taiwan’s southernmost point as of early Friday.
It is expected to reach the Hengchun Peninsula in southern Taiwan on Saturday, according to the Central Weather Bureau. Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung on Friday urged residents to stay away from beaches and stay alert to upcoming heavy rain in southern Taiwan and the eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung. On Friday, schools and businesses in some townships in southern Pingtung County and on two offshore islets of eastern Taiwan were closed. — DPA
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