World | India
Four killed as Typhoon Nuri lashes northern provinces
Landslides have killed three brothers and an elderly woman in the northern Philippines as a powerful typhoon battered the region, prompting authorities to cancel classes and raise storm alerts.
- Agencies
- Published: 20:28 August 20, 2008
Manila: Landslides have killed three brothers and an elderly woman in the northern Philippines as a powerful typhoon battered the region, prompting authorities to cancel classes and raise storm alerts.
Typhoon Nuri skirted the northeastern tip of Cagayan province yesterday, on the main island of Luzon, with gusts of up to 170km/h, but its outer bands engulfed most of the mountainous northern provinces.
Chief weather forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said Nuri was a powerful system that likely would gain strength as it moved across Babuyan and Calayan islands in the Luzon Strait toward Hong Kong and Guangdong in eastern China. He said the typhoon was enhancing monsoon rains and that strong winds would continue until today morning.
Landfall
"It has made landfall. She is lashing northern Luzon," said Nathaniel Cruz, chief forecaster at the state weather bureau. "Almost all of northern Luzon is experiencing the fury of Karen," Cruz said, referring to the local name of Typhoon Nuri.
Large parts of Luzon island were drenched by heavy rain, including Manila and nearby suburbs, and schools had called off classes in some affected provinces, disaster relief officials said.
"We are prepared. We are not just looking at rain and strong winds, we are also looking at storm surges and strong waves in coastal areas," said Anthony Golez, deputy administrator of the National Disaster Coordinating Council.
Golez said provincial capitals in Luzon had been forewarned about Nuri and that contingency plans were in place.
The general manager of the Metro Manila Development Authority, Roberto Nacianceno, said there was some minor flooding in the capital. Rivers were also close to overflowing in provinces north of Manila.
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