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The typhoon floods villages, rips off roofs and damages two domestic airports in the northern Philippines
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The typhoon floods villages, rips off roofs and damages two domestic airports in the northern Philippines

MANILATyphoon Yinxing hit the northern Philippines with floods and landslides before blowing away from the country on Friday, leaving two airports damaged and compounding a disaster caused by back-to-back storms that have hit in recent weeks.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from Yinxing, the 13th major storm to hit the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago this year.

The typhoon, locally named Marce, was last tracked over the South China Sea about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the northern Philippine province of Ilocos Norte with sustained winds of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 205 km/h ( 127 mph), according to government forecasters. It is expected to weaken further before hitting Vietnam.

The typhoon flooded villages, toppled trees and power poles and damaged houses and buildings in Cagayan province, where Yinxing made landfall on Thursday afternoon, provincial officials said. More than 40,000 villagers were evacuated to safer ground in the province.

In the northernmost island province of Batanes, Governor Marilou Cayco said Yinxing’s strong winds and rain blew off roofs and damaged ports and two domestic airports.

More details on damage, including in two northern mountain towns hit by landslides, were expected after provinces hit by the typhoon completed an assessment, officials said.

The new damage will complicate recovery efforts from two powerful storms that battered the northern region in recent weeks.

Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey killed at least 151 people in the Philippines and affected nearly 9 million others, mostly in the northern and central provinces. More than 14 billion pesos ($241 million) in rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.

Trami dumped one to two months of rain in just 24 hours in some regions. In the worst-hit province of Batangas, south of Manila, at least 61 people died in floods and landslide.

More than 630,000 people were still displaced by Trami and Kong-rey as of Thursday, officials said, including 172,000 who remained in emergency shelters as Yinxing blew across the country’s mountainous north.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. decided not to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru next week to focus on recovery efforts, Communications Secretary Cesar Chavez said.

2013, Typhoon Haiyanone of the strongest tropical cyclones on record, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, caused ships to run aground and crushed houses in the central Philippines. The archipelago is also in a region prone to earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.

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