PRAYING IN THE DARK
In Dinagat Islands province, where Kalmaegi first made landfall, 34-year-old Miriam Vargas sat with her children in the dark on Monday night, praying as the winds slammed against the walls of her home.
“There is strong rain and winds starting. We’re sitting on the stairs and praying while trying to gauge the typhoon’s strength,” the single mother told AFP.
“The wind is whistling and there are sounds of things falling. The electricity went out about an hour ago, and we cannot see anything.”
On nearby Leyte Island, disaster official Roel Montesa said evacuations were “ongoing in Palo and Tanauan” on Monday, naming two of the towns hardest hit by storm surges in 2013, when Super Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people there.
The Philippines was hit by two major storms in September, including Super Typhoon Ragasa, which toppled trees and tore the roofs off buildings on its way to killing 14 people in nearby Taiwan.
The weather service’s Varilla said that higher numbers of cyclones typically accompany La Nina, a naturally occurring climate pattern that cools surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Source: CNA
