More than 150,000 people took shelter in coastal provinces of the Philippines on Monday as powerful Typhoon Kalmaegi made landfall in a region hit by some of the country’s deadliest storms.
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The typhoon, with winds of 150km/h (93 mph) and gusts of up to 205km/h, made first contact in Dinagat Islands province, part of the Visayas island chain, before 11pm local time, the national weather service said.
Barely an hour earlier, 34-year-old Miriam Vargas sat in the darkness with her two children after the storm knocked out their electricity.
“As of now, there is strong rain and winds starting. We’re sitting on the stairs and praying while trying to gauge the typhoon’s strength,” the single mother told Agence France-Presse from Dinagat.
“The wind is whistling and there are sounds of things falling. The electricity went out about an hour ago, and we cannot see anything.”
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Roel Montesa, a disaster official on Leyte Island, said earlier that evacuations were “ongoing in Palo and Tanauan”, naming two of the towns hardest hit by storm surges in 2013, when Super Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people there.
Thousands of residents have also been evacuated since Sunday on neighbouring Samar island, where three-metre (10-ft) surges are predicted, according to civil defence official Randy Nicart.