Dolores, Eastern Samar has been identified as the unlucky town where Super Typhoon Hagupit will first touch the Philippines. According to current forecasts, Hagupit will be packing winds of 180-200 kph near the centre with gusts of up to 220 kph.
Veteran of 2013 Haiyan disaster reporter Andrew Stevens of CNN International on site in Tacloban
(Source: @9newsPh on Twitter)
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Residents in low-lying and mountainous areas are alerted against flash floods and landslides. Likewise, those living along the coast are warned on the occurrence of big waves associated with storm surge which may reach up to 4.5 meters.
The Guardian reports that more than half a million people have been evacuated to safety…
About 10 million residents of the Bicol and eastern Visayas regions were deemed at risk from flooding, storm surges and strong winds. AccuWeather global weather centre said more than 30 million people would feel the impact of the typhoon across the country.
Oceans begin to surge in Guiaun coastal areas which are largely empty thanks to early evacuation efforts.(Source: @IOMasiapacific on Twitter)
In Tacloban, the epicentre of Super Typhoon Haiyan’s devastation in 2013, UNICEF Philippines in a late afternoon tweet reports that evacuees have taken refuge in the Astrodome in anticipation of the coming storm landfall.
Power lines topple in Tacloban City as Hagupit approaches
(Source: @DZMMTeleRadyo on Twitter)
People in the capital must also prepare for the storm, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said at a briefing today. Hagupit, which according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center is a super typhoon, will probably affect about two thirds of the nation’s provinces, he said yesterday.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines remain at full alert as the national government mulls declaring a state of national emergency under threats of skyrocketing prices of basic necessities including food in the storm’s wake. Measures are also being taken by key government agencies to ensure sufficient supplies of food and critical goods are kept flowing into the affected areas to curb panic buying.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
WOW, this does not look good…and the countries that have provided relief may not be soooo willing this time. The disgraceful theft of supplies last year did not go un-noticed in the West.It actually made some headlines. BUT,never fear the USA will always come through, with their magically printed ‘DOLLARS’/should-be toilet paper, as the Philippines is the anchor the keeps the USA firmly entrenched in the S.E.Asian neighborhood.
The Typhoon brings opportunists in the midst of the suffering of people…
If people in Tacloban need shelter they should open the so-called “Santo Nino Shrine.” It is a huge warehouse that holds all the gifts that were donated to the Marcos family; that they could not use. They have crystal chandeliers, furniture, handicrafts, artworks, dioramas depicting Marcos giving land to the peasants…basically a lot of useless junk because it is not air conditioned and everything has started to turn green. It is a huge museum of greed. What it has to do with the Santo Nino, no one seems able to figure out. However, it is a large well constructed space that could give refuge to a thousand people.
It’s still the same. All of them are press releases and false sense of security. We will know the real deal as soon as the Category 4 Typhoon Hagupit has completely left the Failippines.
Please don’t call it the failippines. The Filipinos I have met here in NZ are the most friendly, polite, cheerful and helpful people I know. Don’t run the country down like that. Everyone has complaints about their government. I think the evacuation of half a million people is a fine effort.
The average Pinoy’s complaint about government (if he thinks about government at all) happen to be a lot more profound, deep-seated, and long-standing than the complaints of average Joes towards their governments almost anywhere else. While I disagree with the term “Failippines” to describe our collective incapacity for self-determination, the term is not coined lightly, so to speak.
The typhoon has barreled through a few provinces, but no astronomical body counts or a complete breakdown in relief efforts yet.
Better start praying for a Tacloban, GRP — can’t afford looking like a doofus after all those ministrations about impending disaster.
See below.
Should we add this to your body count?
Yeah, yeah. The preemptive huddle into the evacuation centers might deserve a few pats in the back from someone else, but it’s yet to be seen if da Pinoys could maintain the same zeal against future super typhoons and not-so-super typhoons. *ubo*cogon*ubo*
Trauma is a fucking powerful motivator — to the government, to LGUs, to the guy on the street, to pretty much everybody — to alter and upgrade each one’s disaster management plans. Whether Hagupit will finally force us Pinoys to take typhoon season seriously enough to prepare for it proactively and in the long term as, say, Japan has, and invest in infrastructure and information campaigns to avert another Haiyan — that’s an open question.
Please don’t take the lives that could have been lost to the storm lightly like that, all for the sake of making the Philippine government look like bigger idiots to the world.
I know the country needs a huge punch in the jaw to wake up and see how much of a hellhole it’s become, but don’t hope for a high body count. It just makes you look like a huge ass.
I’m not. It’s not clear the folks here at GRP want one either — but it’s clear that had Hagupit come in barreling at something like its peak strength, with consequent high death toll, most of us here won’t take a good look at the government disaster management plans, and instead bash for all its worth.
(Latest from rt.com)
In one of the world’s largest peacetime evacuations, 1 million people in the Philippines have flocked to shelters to take cover against Typhoon Hagupit, which has brought heavy rains and strong winds. At least four people are feared dead.
A 65-year-old man and a one-year-old girl died from hypothermia, a municipal disaster risk management officer told the Bangkok Post, adding that a 35-year-old woman died from complications while giving birth and a 75-year-old woman drowned during the typhoon.
Two people were also injured in Negros Oriental province, the local civil defense office said.
It’s not the government’s zero-casualty goal, so technically it’s failed to achieve that figure. But only technically — one would have to be an especially petty asshole to not give the government or the populace in those affected by (the incredible shrinking storm — there’s that caveat) Hagupit.