Second Major Storm in a Week Displaces 1.4 Million in Philippines

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – A vast and powerful typhoon that forced more than 1.4 million people to flee their homes blew out over the South China Sea on Monday, leaving a trail of destruction, flooding, and at least two dead in a nation still reeling from a separate deadly storm just days earlier.

The weakening Typhoon Fung-wong, which had slammed into the country's eastern seaboard on Sunday evening as a ferocious "super typhoon," brought a second wave of misery to the archipelago, its immense footprint swamping towns, uprooting trees, and triggering landslides across a wide swath of the country before finally departing, its next target a weakened turn towards Taiwan.

The storm’s departure on Monday morning marked the end of a terrifying 24 hours for the Philippines, a period that saw a massive and preemptive mobilization of emergency workers and military troops.

It was a race against time for a country still counting the dead from Typhoon Kalmaegi, which had sliced through the central islands just last week, claiming at least 224 lives and leaving a landscape of devastation.

The back-to-back storms have stretched the nation’s disaster response capabilities to their limit and underscored the terrifying new reality of a warming climate, which scientists, as noted in reports by both Agence France-Presse and The New York Times, warn is making such storms more intense and destructive.

The Aftermath: A Landscape of Devastation

As the storm’s fury subsided, the first light of dawn on Monday began to reveal the extent of the damage. In Aurora province, where Fung-wong made landfall the night before with devastating force, officials were only just beginning to assess the destruction.

The Associated Press reported that the storm came ashore with sustained winds of up to 185 kilometers per hour (115 mph) and gusts reaching 230 kph (143 mph). Rescue worker Geofry Parrocha, speaking to Agence France-Presse from the town of Dipaculao, where power had yet to be restored, described a scene of widespread damage.

"We're seeing many damaged houses and some of our main roads were not passable due to landslides," he said. "We couldn't mobilise last night because the rain was heavy and the volume of water was high."

The storm's immense power was felt all along the coast. Aurora Taay, the mayor of Dingalan town in the same province, told a Facebook Live audience that massive waves had smashed numerous houses and boats along the shoreline. On the eastern island province of Catanduanes, which was one of the first areas to feel the typhoon's wrath early Sunday, residents described a terrifying ordeal.

"The waves started roaring around 7:00 am. When the waves hit the seawall, it felt like the ground was shaking," Edson Casarino, a 33-year-old resident of Virac town, told AFP.

A video verified by the news agency showed a church in the town surrounded by floodwaters that had reached halfway up its entrance. Major flooding was also reported across southern Luzon's Bicol region. In the town of Guinobatan, verified video showed streets that had been transformed into raging torrents of churning water.

The human cost of the storm, while thankfully limited by the mass evacuations, was still tragic. The civil defence office confirmed two fatalities. According to the Associated Press, one person drowned in a flash flood in Catanduanes.

The other death occurred in Samar province, an area that had already been hammered by Typhoon Kalmaegi. Rescuer Juniel Tagarino in Catbalogan City told AFP that the body of a 64-year-old woman had been pulled from under the debris of her collapsed house.

"The wind was so strong and the rain was heavy," Tagarino said. "According to her family members, she might have forgotten something and went back inside her house."

A Nation on High Alert: The Massive Evacuation

The relatively low death toll from such a powerful storm is a direct testament to the massive and preemptive government response. Recognizing the immense threat posed by Fung-wong, which was categorized as a super typhoon by the state weather bureau and as equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii, authorities undertook one of the largest evacuations in recent memory.

According to both AFP and the AP, more than 1.4 million people moved into emergency shelters or the homes of relatives before the typhoon made landfall. About 318,000 remained in evacuation centers on Monday, the AP reported.

The New York Times detailed the extensive mobilization, noting that the Armed Forces of the Philippines had deployed 243 search, rescue, and retrieval teams, manned by about 1,500 personnel, to key areas in northern and central Luzon.

Lt. Gen. Aristotle Gonzalez, the Northern Luzon regional commander, affirmed the military’s commitment to "deliver immediate assistance and ensure the safety of our people." In an address to the nation on Saturday, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had called on the public to "cooperate" with authorities.

"Every second counts," he said. "I would like to remind everyone to keep calm, listen and follow the advice of their respective local governments and to evacuate if you live in vulnerable places." As a precautionary measure, schools and most government offices were closed on Monday and Tuesday across swathes of Luzon, including the sprawling capital of Manila, a metropolis of nearly 15 million people.

For many citizens, the traumatic memory of past floods was enough to convince them to heed the warnings. In the northern province of Cagayan, Loretta Salquina, sheltering in an evacuation center, told AFP, "We often suffer flooding in our home, so when we were told to evacuate, we evacuated, because we would be trapped."

A Double Tragedy in a Changing Climate

What has made this latest natural disaster so particularly harrowing for the Philippines is its timing.

Fung-wong arrived while the nation was still in the midst of search, rescue, and recovery operations for Typhoon Kalmaegi. That storm sent floodwaters rushing through towns and cities in the central islands of Cebu and Negros, sweeping away cars, riverside shanties, and even massive shipping containers.

AFP reported that the search and rescue efforts for Kalmaegi victims in Cebu had to be suspended on Saturday due to safety concerns over the approaching super typhoon, a heartbreaking decision that highlights the relentless nature of the crisis.

Scientists have been warning that this pattern of increasingly powerful storms is a direct consequence of human-driven climate change.

As noted by AFP and The New York Times, warmer oceans provide more energy for typhoons to strengthen rapidly, while a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, resulting in heavier and more destructive rainfall.

Fung-wong was a storm of monstrous proportions, with The New York Times reporting an expected rain band of nearly 1,000 miles and the AP describing it as an 1,800-kilometer (1,100-mile)-wide system.

As Fung-wong, now weakened, heads northwest into the South China Sea towards Taiwan, the Philippines is left to pick up the pieces once again.

Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV of the Office of Civil Defense told the AP that while the typhoon has passed, "its rains still pose a danger in certain areas," and that Monday would be dedicated to rescue, relief, and disaster-response operations. 

The Philippines, one of the world's most disaster-prone countries, has not yet called for international assistance, but according to the AP, the United States and Japan stand ready to help. For a nation battered by two major typhoons in the space of a single week, the road to recovery will be long and arduous.