Philippine authorities began evacuating thousands of people and shut down dozens of ports on Saturday as a strong typhoon threatened to wallop the country’s east coast on Christmas Day.
Nock-Ten is expected to be packing winds of between 203-250 kilometres per hour when it crosses over Catanduanes, a remote island of 250,000 people in the Bicol region, late Sunday, the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
It is then expected to hit the country’s main island of Luzon, including the capital Manila, on Monday.
“The pre-emptive evacuation is ongoing” in Catanduanes and two nearby provinces, Rachel Miranda, spokeswoman for the civil defence office in the Bicol region, said.
She said she did not have the total number of people who have been transferred to higher ground or to safer structures. The evacuations came as another civil defence official in the area said that hundreds of thousands of residents were under threat from the approaching typhoon.
The Philippine weather service warned of potentially deadly two-metre waves along the coast, as well as landslides and flash floods from heavy rains.
Seafaring vessels in the area were ordered to stay at port, while one airline cancelled 18 Christmas-Day flights to and from Bicol airports.