Tropical storms bearing dangerous amounts of moisture are affecting communities on opposite sides of the world.
Typhoon Usagi in the northern Philippines has dumped massive amounts of rain in the region, knocking out power, sweeping away houses and bridges and displacing thousands of people since it made landfall Thursday afternoon. Thousands of people were evacuated before the typhoon’s arrival, but no deaths have been reported so far.
Usagi is the northern Philippines’ fifth major storm in less than a month, landing just two days after Typhoon Toraji left the area, leaving behind floods and displacing more than 82,000 people.
“Typhoons are overlapping,” U.N. Philippines Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Gustavo Gonzalez said in a statement. “As soon as communities attempt to recover from the shock, the next tropical storm is already hitting them again.”
In its emergency plan, the U.N. Humanitarian Country Team in the Philippines said: “The Philippines is facing an exceptionally challenging tropical cyclone season, with successive cyclones reaching unprecedented locations and scales. Local authorities, who are often impacted themselves, are overwhelmed as they simultaneously respond to the crisis and coordinate rescue efforts for affected families.”
Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Friday that the country’s sixth typhoon, Man-yi, is expected to make landfall Saturday over eastern provinces, including the Manila region.
He urged officials to make sure sufficient food and other supplies are available to deal with Man-yi’s aftermath.
“We have to do a little extra here. We are already in bad shape because of the saturation, the damage done to infrastructure, homes and other infrastructure,” Marcos said at a briefing. “Watch out for the storm surge and continue what you are doing on the relief goods.”
Meanwhile, Mexico and Belize have issued warnings for Tropical Storm Sara, and Honduras has canceled its warning from the Nicaragua/Honduras border westward to Punta Patuca, according to the National Hurricane Center.
However, the forecasters reported in their latest advisory that Sara is “sluggishly meandering near the Honduras coast” with “catastrophic flooding and mudslides ongoing for portions of Central America.”
In Mexico, the NHC said, a warning is in effect from Puerto Costa Maya southward to Chetumal, while in Belize the warning is in effect from Belize City northward to Chetumal.
NHC forecasters predict “the center of Sara will continue to move near the northern coast of Honduras during the next day or so before approaching Belize, and then move onshore in Belize during the day on Sunday.”
Despite the NHC cancellation of the warning for Honduras, its latest advisory reported that northern Honduras could expect 38 to 63 centimeters of rain, and isolated totals as high as 88 centimeters. NHC said that much rain could lead to “widespread areas of life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides, especially along and near the Sierra La Esperanza.”
According to the NHC, Sara is set to drop 12 to 25 centimeters of rain and as much as 38 centimeters across the rest of Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, western Nicaragua and the Mexican state of Quintana Roo through early next week.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
