‘Egay’ blows off roofs, floods villages, displaces thousands in Northern Luzon

Upertyphoon

Doksuri)

A s Egay continue to batter parts of the country on Wednesday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said the government is ready to provide aid to the affected families.

I n a post in his Twitter account, Marcos assured the government has over P173 million stand-by funds as well as food and non-food items to help the typhoon victims.

The President also said the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) already mobilized their teams to help in the search, rescue and retrieval operations in the typhoon-hit areas.

T here were no immediate reports of casualties after the typhoon slammed into Fuga Island off Aparri town in Cagayan province, where 15,843 people were evacuated from high-risk coastal villages. Schools and workplaces were shut down as a precaution as Doksuri approached.

T housands of people in other northern provinces were also displaced by the typhoon, which has a 700-kilometer-wide band of wind and rain.

Egay weakened slightly but remained dangerous and lethal with sustained winds of 175 kilometer per hour (kph) and gusts of up to 240 kph. It was blowing over the coastal waters of the Babuyan Islands in Luzon Strait off Aparri town Wednesday morning, forecasters said.

“Our northern coastal towns are being battered,” Cagayan Gov. Manuel Mamba told The Associated Press by telephone. “I’m receiving reports of tin roofs being blown away and flooding that could not drain out probably because of tidal surges coming in from the sea.”

A d amage assessment would be done after the typhoon passes, but