MANILA—Many residents fled from a clutch of islands in the central Philippines on Thursday as schools and other buildings were turned into evacuation centers in preparation for a powerful typhoon expected to make landfall Saturday.
Some 4.5 million people will be within a 40-mile radius of damaging winds if Hagupit—which the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center has classified as a supertyphoon—stays on its projected course, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. (Read the latest on Typhoon Hagupit as it approaches the coast of the Philippines.)
Hagupit—Filipino for “lash”—is heading toward the midsection of the Philippines, which was clobbered by supertyphoon Haiyan just over a year ago.
Some residents of Tacloban, ground zero for that deadly storm, packed into bus stations Thursday to catch rides to stay with relatives in safer areas, said Jerry Yaokasin, vice mayor of Tacloban city. The city has moved hundreds of people still living in tents because of Haiyan’s destruction to safer shelters. Rescue and road-clearing vehicles were put on standby, while Tacloban’s city workers have been ordered to be on 24-hour alert.
“I estimate around 3,000 to 5,000 have already left the city,” Mr. Yaokasin said of a city that is home to some 220,000 people.
Hagupit, with a 435-mile diameter, is expected to make landfall in Eastern Samar—an area also hit hard by Haiyan. The typhoon is expected to cross to the South China Sea on Sunday, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said.
Hagupit is expected to broadly follow the path of Haiyan, which leftmore than 6,300 people dead and cost the economy around $12 billion.
Hagupit isn’t likely to be as strong as Haiyan, which had winds topping 185 miles an hour and almost 20-foot-high storm surges. It is expected to be strong enough to uproot trees, blow roofs off houses and whip up storm surges.
The Philippines calls a typhoon a “supertyphoon” if it has sustained center winds of more than 137 miles an hour. Hagupit had recorded gusts of 150 miles an hour Thursday afternoon and could intensify as it approaches the country’s eastern seaboard.
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