Five rescuers died in the Philippines after Super Typhoon Noru slammed into the north of the country, causing floods and power outages and forcing officials to suspend classes and government work in the capital and outlying provinces.
The most powerful typhoon to hit the country this year hit the coast in Burdeos city in Quezon province before nightfall on Sunday and weakened overnight across the main Luzon region. Thousands of people were transported to emergency shelters, some forcibly.
Daniel Fernando, the governor of Bulacan province north of Manila, said five rescuers, who were using a boat to help residents trapped in flood waters, were hit by a collapsed wall and apparently drowned in the rampaging waters.
They were heroes who were helping save the lives of our countrymen amid this calamity, Fernando told the DZMM radio network. This is really sad. On Polillo Island in north-eastern Quezon province, a man was injured after falling off the roof of his house.
More than 17,000 people were moved to emergency shelters from high-risk communities prone to tidal surges, flooding and landslides in Quezon alone, officials said.
More than 3,000 people were evacuated to safety in metropolitan Manila, which was lashed by fierce wind and rain overnight. On Monday, classes and government work were suspended in the capital and outlying provinces as a precaution, although the morning skies were sunny.
The entire northern provinces of Aurora and Nueva Ecija, which were hit by the typhoon, remained without power on Monday and repair crews were at work to bring back electricity, the energy secretary, Raphael Lotilla, told the president, Ferdinand Marcos JrMarcos Jr, in a televised meeting.
Marcos praised officials for evacuating thousands of people to safety as a precaution before the typhoon hit, which prevented a large number of deaths despite Noru's potentially disastrous force.
Vicente Malano, who oversees the country's weather agency, said on Sunday that Noru had intensified its activity over the open Pacific Ocean before it hit the Philippines.
Noru was a super typhoon just 24 hours later from sustained winds of 85 km h 53 mph on Saturday, with sustained winds of 195 km h and gusts of up to 240 km h at its peak late Sunday.
By Monday morning, Noru had sustained winds of 140 km h and gusts of 170 km h and was moving west in the South China Sea at 30 km h, according to the weather agency.
In 2013, the Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones in the world, left more than 7,300 dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines.