Reply #4: Those poor people...gheesh!

[Breeze54]

Philippines hunkers down as Typhoon Mitag nears

Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:11am EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSSP177842

By Raju Gopalakrishnan

MANILA, Nov 23 (Reuters) -

Typhoon Mitag intensified as it moved slowly towards the Philippines on Friday, triggering
mass evacuations, flight cancellations and exacerbating flooding from a previous storm.

The typhoon has winds of 175 km per hour (108 miles per hour) at its centre and is forecast
to strengthen.

The storm is almost stationary east of the central Bicol region, the Philippines' typhoon alley,
on Friday evening, but was likely to make landfall on Saturday, weather officials said.

snip--->

Mitag, a woman's name pronounced Me-tok from Yap in the Pacific Ocean, is expected
to cut through Bicol before passing into the South China Sea by Monday.

It is currently a category 2 typhoon and is expected to intensify to a category 4 typhoon,
with winds up to 250 kph, on Saturday, according to storm tracker Web site

www.tropicalstormrisk.com.

Rains from the system are likely to affect most of the central and northern Philippines,
weather officials said.

The Red Cross said the repeated pounding of the north and central areas by storms threatened rebuilding efforts.

"What is particular about this is that these areas have been hit regularly for the last year,"
said Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippines National Red Cross.


More...

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