MANILA, 29 September 2006 — Typhoon Xangsane slammed into metropolitan Manila and nearby provinces yesterday, leaving at least 10 people killed, forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes, and plunging the country’s biggest island to darkness.
The typhoon, named “Milenyo” by the weather bureau Pagasa, hit the national capital with gale-force winds and pounding rain, causing widespread floods and damage, officials said.
Gale-force winds toppled trees and heavy downpours triggered landslides, blocking some provincial roads. The typhoon also shut schools, ferries and the country’s financial markets, and forced officials to suspend two commuter trains in Manila. A much-awaited college league basketball championship game was postponed.
Thousands of passengers were stranded at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport as domestic and international flights were cancelled due to the high winds and power outages.
Violent winds and seas also stranded around 3,500 ferry passengers.
Xangsane toppled more than a dozen high voltage power lines, causing a “total system blackout” on Luzon shortly before 1 p.m. (0500 GMT), said Arvee Villafuerte, spokesman of the state-run National Transmission Corp.
Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said the outage was partly due to voluntary shutdown of plants to avoid storm damage.
Villafuerte said the power restoration was slow because of the extent of the damage, adding that only about 12 percent of the entire Luzon grid was back up by 5 p.m. (0700 GMT).
The blackout and debris left Manila without traffic and street lights, causing gridlocks in some areas. Hotels and shops used their own generators.
The Office of Civil Defense and local officials reported at least 10 people were killed, including a drunken man who fell into a river in Antique province in the central Philippines, a driver pinned under the steel frames of a giant billboard that fell on his van in Manila’s financial district of Makati, and a man hit by a falling tree in Albay province southeast of Manila.
At least one person was confirmed killed and rescuers were still digging for four others at a landslide site in the village of Lansonesan in barangay Limaw of Calauan, Laguna province, south of Manila.
The fatality was identified as Julius Magsino, 17. Police said they were still trying to dig out the other victims, identified as Marcelino Lastimosa, Elena Lastimosa, Federico Lastimosa and Gerry Lastimosa.
Also in Laguna, officials said around 50 people were injured as three buildings inside the Calamba Premiere Industrial collapsed.
Superintendent Roland Bustos, Calamba police chief, quoted workers in the buildings of Shinei, Samsung, and PL Technologies as saying they felt like “a tornado had hit them” shortly before the structures collapsed around 11 a.m.
“The buildings looked as if they had been hit by a bomb and the office equipment was destroyed,” Bustos said in a phone interview.
Even the Robinson’s Galleria mall in Manila’s suburb of Mandaluyong was not spared. Strong winds ripped off translucent sheets from its roof, forcing management to ask hundreds of people seeking shelter from the mall to leave.
In Fort Bonifacio Global City in suburban Taguig, strong winds also blew off portions of the roof of the Market! Market! shopping mall, prompting management to shut down the mall.
Taxi drivers were reluctant to take to the road.
“It’s too dangerous,” said one cab driver, Armando Legaspi.
“Trees were falling left and right. So many things were flying out there. Visibility was also poor and I was so afraid the wind could flip my car.”
The typhoon packed maximum winds of 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 160 kph (100 mph) when it made landfall overnight in the eastern region of Bicol, where it knocked down electricity in five provinces.
It weakened into a storm with 110 kph winds (69 mph) as it passed over Manila, and moved to the South China Sea yesterday evening, heading west toward Vietnam at 22 kph (14 mph) with gusts of up to 140 kph (88 mph), forecasters said.
Antique’s acting governor Eduardo Fortaleza said rescue workers evacuated about 100 residents who were trapped on an islet in the middle of a raging river in Barbaza town.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo held a teleconference with her disaster management officials in Manila from the northern Clark economic zone, where she was forced to wait out the storm.
She returned to the presidential palace hours later after crisscrossing the city to avoid roads blocked by fallen trees and other debris, reporters traveling in her convoy said.
Strong winds toppled a row of trees on Manila’s bayside boulevard and knocked down billboards near the US and Japanese embassies, blocking traffic. Workers used chain saws to clear the roads amid howling winds and blinding rain.
Some residents in flooded areas ferried people across streets under knee-deep water on makeshift rafts, charging about 20 pesos ($0.40) per person.
Agriculture officials said an initial estimate showed 60 million pesos ($1.19 million) worth of crops, particularly fruit trees, had been destroyed.
Xangsane, the 13th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, was the strongest typhoon to hit Manila in 11 years. In November 1995, the 260-kph (163-mph) super typhoon Angela battered the Philippine capital after slicing through central provinces, leaving 936 people dead. (With reports from agencies)
