HAGATNA: Meteorologists warned Tuesday that a storm reported to have left several casualties and severe damage in Micronesia was building into a super-typhoon as it swept across the central Pacific toward the Yap group of islands.

The island of Chuuk, part of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), received a direct hit late on Sunday from Typhoon Maysak and the Yap group was next in its path.

“Chuuk was devastated,” lawyer Kembo Mida said in an e-mail to the Ayuda Foundation relief organization which is based in Guam about 1,000 km away.

“Houses were blown away and trees snapped in half. It was very dangerous and scary... a ship sank too.”

The Pacific News Center in Guam said FSM public information officer Marz Akapito “is reporting that five people have died in Chuuk state due to typhoon Maysak.”

The consul-general for FSM based in Guam, Robert Ruecho, told AFP he had heard various casualty counts of one and later five, but “cannot confirm anything right now.”

Maysak was expected to have intensified to a maximum category five storm by the time it hit Yap early Wednesday.

Neville Koop, a meteorologist with Fiji’s Na Draki weather service, said at its peak it would have winds of 270 kilometers per hour (168 miles per hour) with gusts up to 340kph.

“This typhoon will be very destructive,” Koop told AFP. “At its peak Typhoon Maysak will be as strong as Cyclone Pam.”