By Ian Sayson and Cecilia Yap
Manila: A super typhoon weakened after barrelling through the southern part of the Philippines' main island of Luzon on Sunday, with officials reporting at least four deaths, power supply outages, infrastructure damage and flash floods.
The weather bureau downgraded Goni, the world's strongest storm so far this year, to typhoon category, with 215 km/h sustained winds and gusts of up to 290 kmh after it made landfall in the Bicol region.
Members of the Philippine Coast Guard carry a child as they are evacuated to safer ground in Camarines Sur province, eastern Philippines as they prepare for Typhoon Goni. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard
Tropical storm-wind alerts were lowered, but the weather agency warned that Goni still posed a threat while traversing provinces south of the capital Manila.
Goni made two landfall in two places in the Bicol region, where four deaths were reported, said provincial Governor Al Francis Bichara, including one hit by a tree and a five-year-old washed away after a river overflowed.
The disaster management agency could not confirm the report.
Video footage by news channels and on social media showed rivers overflowing and some dikes destroyed, submerging villages in Bicol.
Bichara also received reports of volcanic mud flows, as well as electricity supply and communication service outages.
In Quezon, Governor Danilo Suarez said power supply was cut in 10 towns as Goni toppled trees.
Between 19 million and 31 million people could be affected by the typhoon, including those in danger zones and in metropolitan Manila, the disaster management agency said.
About 347,000 people were in evacuation centres, said disaster management chief Ricardo Jalad, lowering the figure of nearly a million reported by the agency on Saturday.
In Naga City, east of Manila, Almira Miray Martinez and her family have put weights and tied rope around their galvanised metal roof. They covered their windows with material from rice sacks and tarpaulin to keep the rain out.
Their clothes are packed in a garbage bag, so they won't get wet. She, her husband and two sons, ages 17 and 20, are staying awake. They must make sure the drainage outside their house is not clogged by wood or debris, so as not to cause a flood.
"We could leave, but the reality of people like us - those who are hard up - is that the things we own are very hard to replace," Martinez said. "We could let go of material things like the TV, refrigerator, table - but we'll only leave [these] if we really have to."
A mere tropical storm on Wednesday, Goni erupted into 2020's most powerful cyclone on the planet by Friday. On Saturday morning local time, its winds peaked at 297km/h, the globe's strongest storm since Hurricane Dorian in 2019, which devastated the northwest Bahamas. It was the most intense storm in the western Pacific since Typhoon Meranti in 2016.
The storm gained strength over waters around 30 to 31 degrees, about 1 to 1.5 degrees warmer than usual. Such rapid intensification is made more likely by human-caused climate change, which has raised ocean temperatures globally.
The cyclone comes days after Typhoon Molave lashed the Southeast Asian nation, leaving at least 22 dead before heading to Vietnam. Goni is tracking a similar route.
A typhoon locally known as Goni moving around the Philippines.Credit: NASA via AP
An average of 20 cyclones pass through disaster-prone Philippines every year, and will likely complicate the nation's fight against the coronavirus as hundreds of thousands of people are evacuated from typhoon-hit areas.
Nearly three dozen areas, including Metro Manila, were placed on storm alert. Catanduanes and the eastern portion of Camarines Sur are under the second-highest storm alert, with winds of 171 km/h to 220 km/h expected in the next 12 hours. Under this typhoon signal, very heavy damage to high-risk structures and considerable damage to structures of light materials are expected.
Coconut, rice and corn plantations may suffer severe losses. Typhoon Goni could damage more than 928,000 hectares of land planted with rice and 58,431 hectares of corn, the Department of Agriculture estimates.
The storm can have a "high humanitarian impact," the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System said on its website, adding that nearly 50 million people are at risk.
Another typhoon, Atsani, is forecast to enter Philippine territory on Sunday but is less likely to bring severe weather over the next three days, according to the nation's weather forecaster.
Reuters, Bloomberg and New York Times