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MANILA (AP): A strong typhoon roared into the eastern Philippines on Thursday (May 14) as authorities work to evacuate tens of thousands of people while avoiding overcrowding in shelters that could spread the coronavirus.
The first typhoon to hit the country this year is expected to hit land later Thursday, said administrator of the meteorological agency Vicente Malano.
The Philippines braced for the typhoon while trying to fight the Covid-19 outbreaks in large part by locking Filipinos into their homes and banning gatherings that can trigger infections. More than 11,600 infections, including 772 deaths, have been reported in the country.
Typhoon Vongfong was last seen 230 km from northern Samar province with maximum sustained winds of 150 km / h and gusts of up to 185 km / h.
Overcrowding in emergency shelters is a common scene in the archipelago affected by about 20 typhoons and storms annually and regularly experiencing volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
Many officials faced a difficult dilemma on how to protect villagers from double threats.
“This is very complicated,” Mayor Benjamin Ver, of a city on the way to the typhoon, told The Associated Press by phone.
Jipapad is very prone to landslides and floods. The city in the province of Eastern Samar is surrounded by mountains and joined by two rivers that often grow in storms.
The only evacuation centers for its 8,000 villagers are a gymnasium and the town hall where residents could be protected from the typhoon.
Ver, who is also the only doctor in town, said he has secured enough face masks to protect his villagers from the virus at city hall when the typhoon strikes.
Observing social distancing “is almost impossible” if all the villagers are crowded into the town hall, but Ver said he would see what else can be done.
Jipapad and all of eastern Samar, a province of half a million people, fortunately remain free of coronavirus infections unlike neighboring regions, provincial governor Ben Evardone said. All emergency shelters have been converted to quarantine facilities with medical equipment in the event of outbreaks, but they may have to be reorganized into evacuation centers if large numbers of people need shelter, Evardone told The AP.
North Samar Provincial Governor Edwin Ongchuan said he has called for twice the usual number of school buildings to be converted into typhoon shelters to accommodate about 80,000 residents who were forcibly evacuated from high-risk coastal villages .
“If we used 10 school buildings before, we now need 20 to accommodate evacuees with social distancing,” said Ongchuan.
The government meteorological agency warned that “coupled with large storm surges, this storm surge can cause life-threatening coastal flooding,” adding that sea travel would be dangerous in regions expected to be mistreated by Vongfong, a Vietnamese word for wasp.
Metropolitan Manila will not be directly hit by the storm, but can be hit by strong winds. Officials were recommended to remove many medical quarantine tents installed outside of hospitals that could fly, Malano said. – AP
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