The deadly storm that battered the
Philippines for days weakened Monday as it rumbled from one island to another,
moving closer to the densely populated capital city.
At least 21 people have died as a
result of the storm, said Gwendolyn Pang, the secretary general of the
Philippine Red Cross.
Tropical Storm Hagupit, which was
downgraded from typhoon strength Monday, slammed into the eastern Philippines
late Saturday. It brought fierce winds and torrential rain to roughly the same
region ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan in November last year.
But while Haiyan left more than
7,000 people dead or missing, Hagupit's toll so far remains in the double
digits.
Hagupit has had a powerful impact
across several major Philippine islands, driving hundreds of thousands of
people from their houses, tearing down trees and causing floods. It has
destroyed nearly 1,000 homes, Pang told .
"I am worried -- I am thinking
of my children and my grandchildren. They are so young, that's why we're
here," said Pilar Rangosajo, a grandmother taking refuge in an evacuation
center in the city of Legazpi. "It's so hard for me because every typhoon
damages our home. We don't have the money to fix it."
Her concerns are common in a country
where many people live in lightly built wooden houses.
Teams try to reach remote areas
As Hagupit -- known locally as Ruby
-- continued to howl over the archipelago, officials have begun to assess the
scale of the damage in the regions it hit. Emergency response teams are trying
to reach some of the remote areas where little is known about the storm's
effects.
A fleet of trucks carrying
humanitarian relief is still on its way to a northern part of the island of
Samar, near where the storm first made landfall, said Philippine Red Cross
Chairman Richard Gordon.
"We will have to cross water to
get over there to find out what really happened," he told .
Officials praised the success of
efforts to relocate large numbers of people away from vulnerable coastal areas,
citing fears of a repeat of last year's devastation as a motivating factor.
"People didn't have to be
pushed anymore," Gordon said. "They knew that they could face another
Haiyan, and Haiyan killed a lot of people from storm surges."
In Tacloban, the city hardest hit by
Haiyan, around half the 200,000 residents evacuated to safer areas ahead of
Hagupit.
Heavy rain concern for capital
Hagupit has been less powerful than
Haiyan, but it is moving at a much slower pace. Weather forecasters said that
means Hagupit will dump large amounts of heavy rain on areas in its path,
increasing the risk of landslides and flash floods.
"It doesn't matter right now if
it's a typhoon or tropical storm -- this is a rainmaker," meteorologist
Tom Sater said.
Noel Rosal, the mayor of Legazpi,
said that "for almost 20 hours, we were battered by rain and strong
winds."
Flooding concerns are particularly
acute for Manila, the national capital whose metropolitan region is home to
nearly 12 million people. Because of the area's geography, many parts of Manila
are susceptible to flash floods.
Hagupit is expected to pass to the
south of Manila, over the province of Batangas.
Humanitarian workers were also
facing challenges coping with the sheer number of people relying on evacuation
centers for support.
"Health issues are kind of
difficult when you have 900,000 people crammed into rescue centers,"
Gordon said, raising concerns about sanitation and respiratory illnesses in
particular.
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