World's most powerful typhoon hits Philippines

Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), the most powerful storm in the world this year, hit the Philippines on Friday, as millions of people huddled indoors and business in vulnerable areas shut down.

 

Yolanda smashed into Guiuan, Eastern Samar, about 600 kilometers southeast of Manila, at 4:40am (2040 GMT Thursday) and was traveling quickly northwest, state meteorologist Romeo Cajulis told AFP.

 

President Benigno Aquino III had on Thursday warned his countrymen to make all possible preparations for Yolanda, which was packing monster wind gusts of nearly 380 kilometers (235 miles) an hour as it approached the Philippines.

 

"To our local officials, your constituents are facing a serious peril. Let us do all we can while (Yolanda) has not yet hit land," Aquino said in a nationally televised address.

 

"We can minimize the effects of this typhoon if we help each other. Let us remain calm, especially in buying our primary needs, and in moving to safer places."

 

Aquino warned areas within the expected 600-kilometer typhoon front would be exposed to severe flooding as well as devastating winds, while coastal areas may see waves six meters (20 feet) high.

 

More than 125,000 people in the most vulnerable areas had been moved to evacuation centersbefore Yolanda hit, according to the civil defense office, and millions of others braced for the typhoon in their homes.

 

Authorities said schools in the storm's path were closed, ferry services suspended and fishermen ordered to secure their vessels.

 

In Manila, which was not directly in the typhoon's path but still expected to feel some of its impact, many schools were also closed.

 

Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and other carriers announced the suspension of hundreds of flights, mostly domestic but also some international.

 

Cajulis said Yolanda was traveling quickly, at 39 kilometers an hour, and would travel across the country towards the South China Sea throughout Friday.

 

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

 

State weather forecaster Glaize Escullar said on Thursday Yolanda was expected to hit areas still recovering from a devastating storm in 2011 and from a 7.1-magnitude quake last month.

 

They include the central island of Bohol, the epicenter of the earthquake that killed 222 people, where at least 5,000 survivors are still living in tents while waiting for new homes.

 

Other vulnerable areas are the port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan on the southern island of Mindanao, where flash floods induced by Tropical Storm Sendong (Washi) killed more than 1,000 people in December 2011.

 

Haiyan had maximum sustained winds on Friday morning of 315 kilometers an hour, and gusts of 379 kilometres an hour, according to the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

 

PAGASA, which typically gives lower wind readings, said the maximum gusts on Friday morning were 275 kilometers an hour.

 

But even that reading would still make Yolanda the world's strongest typhoon this year, according to David Michael Padua, a meteorologist with the Weather Philippines Foundation, a storm monitoring organization that runs the www.weather.com.ph website.

 

The Philippines is battered by an average of 20 major storms or typhoons each year, many of them deadly, but scientists have said climate change may be increasing their ferocity and frequency.

 

The Philippines endured the world's strongest storm of 2012, when Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) left about 2,000 people dead or missing on Mindanao island in December. —Agence France-Presse