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SHAKE AND BLOW
Over 1,000 flee as typhoon threatens northern Philippines
by Staff Writers
Manila (AFP) May 10, 2015


Hundreds flee rumbling Philippines volcano, typhoon
Sorsogon, Philippines (AFP) May 8, 2015 - Hundreds of people fled their homes on the slopes of a rumbling Philippine volcano on Friday as authorities warned of rain-driven mudflows from an approaching typhoon that could bury them alive.

Around 500 residents of farming villages around Bulusan volcano, many of them children and elderly women, boarded army trucks clutching sleeping mats and bags of clothes as Typhoon Noul bore down on the area.

"I have no choice but to evacuate. I may not be strong enough to outrun the mud flows," 66-year-old housewife Dolores Guela told AFP.

Officials said she and her meningitis-stricken nine-year-old granddaughter would be among about 1,000 people taken to temporary shelters to wait out the wrath of Noul, which was forecast to bring heavy rains in the region from late Friday.

The typhoon was gusting at up to 185 kph (115 mph) and experts warned debris from two recent ash explosions could rumble down the slopes of the 1,559-metre (5,115-foot) volcano.

State vulcanologists subsequently raised Alert level 1 -- the lowest in a five-step warning system -- on Bulusan.

Minor ash explosions alone would not normally prompt an evacuation, but authorities ordered one nonetheless because of the threat of mud flows from the approaching storm.

Bulusan, on the southeastern tip of the main island of Luzon, is about 400 kilometres (249 miles) south of the capital, Manila. It is among the country's 23 active volcanoes.

Noul would be the fourth major storm or typhoon to hit the Philippines this year. The disaster-prone nation is lashed by an average of 20 each year, routinely killing hundreds of people.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes as Typhoon Noul approached the northern Philippines, threatening flash floods, landslides and tsunami-like storm surges, government agencies warned on Sunday.

The storm's movement has slowed slightly but it has also strengthened to pack gusts of 205 kilometres (127 miles) per hour and is still expected to hit the northern edge of the main island of Luzon by Sunday afternoon or evening, according to Esperanza Cayanan, chief of the government's weather monitoring division.

As of Sunday morning, it was about 140 kilometres northeast of the northern province of Cagayan, which is expected to feel the brunt of the typhoon's fury later in the day, she added.

Over 1,200 people have already been pre-emptively evacuated from the areas expected to be affected by Noul, said Mina Marasigan, spokeswoman for the government's national disaster monitoring council.

"There are areas which can have landslides. There are areas which can have flash floods. There are coastal areas which can be hit by storm surges as high as 1.5 metres (five feet)," she told AFP.

Storm surges -- tsunami-like waves generated by powerful typhoons -- have become a major concern during storms.

In November 2013 storm surges were the main killers as Super Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the central Philippines, leaving more than 7,350 people dead or missing.

Several hundred people living in a farming hamlet below the restive Bulusan volcano on Luzon have also been evacuated due to the potential that rain could mix with volcanic ash accumulated on the volcano's slopes to form deadly, fast-moving mudflows that could bury entire houses.

The government has already suspended ferry services in the affected areas and some domestic flights have also been cancelled as part of safety measures.

About 20 typhoons and storms hit the Philippines each year, many of them deadly.


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