Tens of thousands flee as powerful typhoon nears Philippines

PanARMENIAN.Net - Tens of thousands of people fled coastal villages and landslide-prone areas in the central Philippines on Friday, Dec 5, a day before a powerful typhoon was expected to hit the island nation where thousands were killed in a devastating storm 13 months ago, Reuters reports.

Typhoon Hagupit had weakened slightly as it churned slowly across the Pacific and was no longer a category 5 "super typhoon", the Philippine weather bureau PAGASA said, but was likely to remain destructive when it makes landfall on Saturday.

Ports were shut across the archipelago, leaving more than 2,000 travelers stranded in the capital Manila, the central Bicol region and Mindanao island in the south, after the coastguard suspended sea travel ahead of the typhoon.

Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific canceled some of their flights to central and southern Philippines.

The eastern islands of Samur and Leyte, which are still recovering from last year's super typhoon Haiyan, could be in the firing line again.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Management in Geneva said 200,000 people had been evacuated in the central island province of Cebu.

Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall and known locally as Yolanda, left more than 7,000 dead or missing and more than 4 million homeless or with damaged houses when it tore through the central Philippines in November 2013.