From wire and MyDiocese.net staff reports
UPDATE, 5 p.m., Monday, Dec. 8, from the AP: LEGAZPI, Philippines—Typhoon “Ruby” weakened into a tropical storm Monday, leaving at least 21 people dead, forcing more than a million people into shelters but sparing most of the Visayas region still haunted by last year’s monster storm.
Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/655870/ruby-weakens-but-leaves-21-dead#ixzz3LJ5qi54j
[Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014] More than 1 million people have fled to shelters before the power of Typhoon Hagupit in the Philippines today, which has killed at least three people.
The raging winds toppled trees, tore away roofs and knocked out power in a region hit by a killer storm just over a year ago.
Episcopal Relief & Development (http://www.episcopalrelief.org) has reached out to the Episcopal Church in the Philippines and its development arm, E-CARE, as Typhoon Hagupit (called Ruby in the Philippines) works its way across the island nation.
The Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) and E-CARE have been monitoring disaster relief efforts in at-risk communities and organizing shipments of relief supplies to send once travel bans have been lifted. Staff in Manila have stockpiled food, water and other items at the Church office, and cleared rooms to host evacuees.
From Charlotte Indico, Philippines-based MyDiocese.net editor: “My cousin John-John was assigned in Tacloban, Leyte. We were so worried because he can no longer be contacted since Saturday night when typhoon Ruby made its landfall. It was only on Sunday afternoon when we heard from him again. And we were so grateful to God that he was perfectly fine. As our family’s way of thanking HIM, we will donate relief goods and any amount of cash that we can collect from each member of the clan to donate to the thousands of evacuees in Leyte.”
Simone Orendain, reporting for NPR from the capital, Manila, says Hagupit/Ruby has “left roof-high flooding in the country’s easternmost province, where it first landed Saturday night. It also knocked out power in dozens of cities across at least eight provinces. The storm ripped up trees and also tore apart a few houses.”
The storm weakened from a Category 4 typhoon to a category 2 overnight, appears to be far less devastating than Typhoon Haiyan from November 2013 — but still terrifying to the island nation’s residents. The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts winds still gusting to 90 mph when the storm’s center passed over Manila.
United Nations experts said it was one of the world’s largest peacetime evacuations, the Mirror reports.
Some homes damaged by Hagupit/Ruby had only been recently rebuilt after Haiyan, which is believed to be the strongest cyclone ever to make landfall.
Sustained winds dropped to 87 mph, with gusts up to 105 mph, NBC News said, down from 130 mph gusts as the storm made landfall on Saturday in Eastern Samar, the region where Haiyan killed thousands last year.
The AP reports:
“Rhea Estuna, a 29-year-old mother of one, fled Thursday to an evacuation center in Tacloban — the city hardest-hit by Haiyan last year — and waited in fear as Hagupit’s wind and rain lashed the school where she and her family sought refuge. When she peered outside Sunday, she said she saw a starkly different aftermath than the one she witnessed last year after Haiyan struck.
“‘There were no bodies scattered on the road, no big mounds of debris,’ Estuna told The Associated Press by cellphone. ‘Thanks to God this typhoon wasn’t as violent.'”
Officials say at least three people have been killed in the storm — one by a falling tree and two others from hypothermia.
“The devastation in homes is huge because of the strong winds,” Philippine Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas told local radio DzBB, according to the BBC. “Many people voluntarily returned to evacuate centres tonight… because they do not have homes anymore.”
The massive storm is due to make a third landfall before dawn Monday local time, the Philippine weather service PAGASA told the media.