Thousands flee Philippine villages as typhoon approaches

Around half a million people in the Philippines have evacuated their homes as a strong typhoon edged closer to the archipelago.

Typhoon Hagupit, Filipino for ‘smash’, weakened slightly on Friday night from its previous category five “super typhoon” level. However gusts are still peaking at 195km/h and 47 of the Philippines’ 81 provinces remain at high risk.

The evacuees fled from coastal villages and landslide-prone areas in the Samar and Leyte provinces that were ravaged by last year’s super typhoon Haiyan that killed over 7,300 people.

"Over 100,000 families are already in evacuation centres," Social Welfare secretary Corazon Soliman said. "Thaț’s around 500,000 people.”

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said that 200,000 people evacuated from the central island province of Cebu alone.

"Typhoon Hagupit is triggering one of the largest evacuations we have ever seen in peacetime," UNISDR spokesman Denis McClean said. 

Phillipine President Benigno Aquino met disaster agency chiefs on Friday and ordered food supplies to be sent to affected areas along with police and army troops to prevent possible looting. Local media reported Aquino as saying that there was “no indication” that Hagupit would be as strong as last year’s Typhoon Haiyan.

Weather forecasters say the typhoon will rapidly weaken as it approaches land.

“Although we said it has weakened, 195km/h is still very strong and we should not be complacent,” said Landrico Dalida, junior acting deputy administrator for operations at the Philippine weather bureau PAGASA.

PAGASA says that the storm’s radius has narrowed from 700km to 600km but still expect it to bring three-to-four metre storm surges as well as torrential rain when it hits the north or eastern provinces of Samar on Saturday.

Over 150 domestic flights were cancelled and sea travel services were suspended.