By Angela Fritz
October 20
10 16
Mail: windeu1@windeu.com and mvznxz@yahoo.com
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A dangerous typhoon is making landfall in the Philippines just days after another major storm. Local emergency managers are warning storm surge could exceed 15 feet in the northernmost region of Luzon. Another foot of rain is likely on top of soaking-wet soil.
Typhoon Haima, known as Lawin in the Philippines, is a monster of a storm. With sustained winds at 160 mph, it became the fifth super typhoon of 2016 on Tuesday morning. The average for this time of year is approximately three. It’s also the seventh Category-5 equivalent of the year, globally.
On Wednesday, Haima made landfall in northern Luzon with 140-mph winds — the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane.
The storm comes just days after Typhoon Sarika, which rapidly intensified into a Category 4 just before making landfall Sunday in Luzon. Sarika killed at least two people in the Philippines before tracking to China and prompting hundreds of thousands of evacuations, Al Jazeera reports.
Sarika’s heavy rain already saturated Luzon’s soil, which dramatically increases the chance of deadly landslides during Haima.
“Sarika’s west-northwest track took it across the heart of the island, where it produced rainfall totals that topped 20 inches in spots,” Weather Underground’s Bob Henson and Jeff Masters said Tuesday in a blog post. “Haima is likely to dump another 10 — 20” of rain, with even higher local totals, across the northern half of Luzon.”
The Philippines weather agency is comparing Haima’s potential impacts to Super Typhoon Haiyan, known as Yolanda in the Philippines, which killed more than 6,000 people in 2013.
“Residents in disaster-prone areas are alerted against the possibility of landslides and [flash floods],” the Philippines emergency management director, Ricardo Jalad, told the Philippines Star. “The occurrence of storm surge of up to five meters is likely to happen over the coast of Cagayan.”
Haima may have a “high humanitarian impact” and could affect as many as 11.6 million people with direct damage, flooding or cuts in critical services and transport links, according to the U.N. Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System.
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