At least one person died and more than 16,000 villagers were evacuated from their homes after Typhoon Koppu slammed into the northern Philippines.
Troops and police were deployed to rescue residents trapped in flooded villages in the hard-hit provinces of Aurora, where the typhoon blew ashore, and Nueva Ecija, a nearby rice-growing province where floodwaters swamped farmlands at harvest time.
After hitting Aurora's Casiguran town, the typhoon weakened and slowed, hemmed in by the Sierra Madre mountain range and a high pressure area in the country's north and another typhoon far out in the Pacific in the east, government forecaster Gladys Saludes said.
Howling winds knocked down trees and electricity pylons, leaving nine entire provinces without power while floods and small landslides made 25 roads and bridges impassable. Authorities suspended dozens of flights and sea voyages due to the stormy weather, and many cities cancelled classes due today.
By yesterday afternoon, the typhoon had veered toward the north from its westward course and was tracked over mountainous Nueva Vizcaya province with sustained winds of 93 miles per hour and gusts of up to 115mph, according to the government's weather agency.
Satellite images showed that the typhoon appeared to be losing its eye, a sign of its dissipating strength, acting weather bureau chief Esperanza Cayanan said, adding that Koppu was forecast to move at a slow pace before leaving the main northern island of Luzon on Wednesday.
While weather had begun to improve in some towns, and villagers had started to clear roads of fallen trees and debris, Koppu was still packing a ferocity that could set off landslides and flash floods, officials said.
"There's still danger," Mr Cayanan said. "We shouldn't be complacent."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here