Typhoon Hagupit weakens over Philippines

t2Typhoon Hagupit has weakened as it continues to slowly sweep across the Philippines, causing some damage.

At least three people have been killed since the storm made landfall on Saturday but it does not appear to have been as severe as many had feared.

Around a million people have taken shelter in evacuation centres.

But correspondents say Hagupit is nowhere near as powerful as Typhoon Haiyan, which killed thousands of people last year.

In Tacloban, badly hit by Typhoon Haiyan, roofs have been blown away and streets are flooded, but the area has escaped the wider devastation of last year.

“There were no bodies scattered on the road, no big mounds of debris,” Rhea Estuna told the Associated Press by phone from Tacloban. “Thanks to God this typhoon wasn’t as violent.”

Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez told the BBC that the immediate task was assessing damage to the temporary shelters in which some people have been living.

He said that the weather was good now but that high tides were making it harder for waterways to drain, despite work to clear debris.

At 04:00 on Monday (20:00 GMT on Sunday), the storm was 110km (70 miles) northwest of Masbate City with maximum sustained winds of 120km/h (75mph) near the centre and gusts of up to 150km/h, government forecaster Pagasa said. It was forecast to move northwest at 10km/h.

At its height, as it approached land on Saturday, gusts of up to 250km/h were recorded,

Authorities say they were better prepared than when Haiyan struck in 2013, and organised the largest peacetime evacuation in the history of the Philippines.

Justin Morgan, Oxfam country director for the Philippines, told the BBC that a key factor was a greater focus on the dangers of storm surges and hence the the movement of people away from coastal areas.

Joey Salceda, governor of Albay province, told the BBC no casualties and only “negligible damage” had been reported in his province.

He said the storm had been identified as a threat in late November, giving officials time to identify population at risk, evacuate them two days ahead of the storm and prepare food supplies.

BBC

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