Tens of thousands in Philippines flee new typhoon

[October 02, 2009]  MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Tens of thousands of villagers fled the likely path of a powerful typhoon bearing down Friday on the Philippines, as the government braced for the possibility of a second disaster just days after a storm killed more than 420 in four Southeast Asian countries.

Heavy rain drenched mountainous coastal regions in the northeast as Typhoon Parma tracked ominously toward the coast, dropping heavy rain on areas still saturated from the worst flooding in 40 years.

Parma was forecast to hit the east coast Saturday, packing sustained winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph) and gusts up to 140 mph (230 kph). Officials fear it may develop into a "super-typhoon," the government's weather bureau said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide "state of calamity" -- freeing up funds for emergency relief -- and ordered six provincial governments to evacuate residents from flood- and landslide-prone areas in Parma's path.

The earlier storm, Ketsana, wrought a trail of destruction across Southeast Asia, killing at least 422 including 293 in the Philippines, 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.

In the Philippines, National Disaster Coordinating Council chief Gilbert Teodoro said children can be evacuated from Parma's path by force, but adults will be given information to make their own decision.

"There is some resistance because they don't want to leave their homes behind for fear of looting," Melchito Castro, the disaster response chief in one threatened district, the Cagayan Valley, told The Associated Press. "If they can't be persuaded, we will be forced to get all the children and minors."

In Albay province alone, almost 50,000 people were evacuated Thursday and Friday with the help of the police and military trucks, said Cedric Daep, a top provincial disaster official.

The Philippines is hit by as many as 20 major storms a year and is well practiced at battening down. Typhoons in the region are most common and usually most powerful from August to November.

Laundry worker Mely Malate fled with her husband and six children to an evacuation center in Albay, spurred by memories of a storm three years ago.

"During the last typhoon, we were trapped inside the house by the floodwaters and we had to climb to the roof," she said. "We are scared whenever there is a storm. When we left this morning, the river was already higher than normal."

Government chief weather forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said Parma appears to be carrying less rain but stronger winds than Ketsana, meaning the flood risk may be lower.

But a vast swath of the northern Philippines, including the capital of Manila, is already saturated from Ketsana, and any more rain poses danger.

In the capital, some store shelves were emptied of bottled water and packaged food as people hunkered down. Prayers asking that the country be spared another disaster were broadcast on government-run trains.

Lake Laguna on the edge of the capital rose by more than 3.3 feet (one meter) as Ketsana passed and was in danger of spilling over into districts near Manila housing some 100,000 people, said Ed Manda, general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority.

At a briefing Friday evening, weather bureau administrator Frisco Nilo said a high-pressure system near Hong Kong had caused Parma to slow slightly and might cause it to change direction, though it was still likely to hit the main northern Philippine island of Luzon.

The typhoon comes as the Asia region struggles to recover from two major earthquakes, one in the South Pacific that caused a deadly tsunami, and another in Indonesia.

[Associated Press; By TERESA CEROJANO]

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Minh Van Tran in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Ambika Ahuja in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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