Typhoon Yinxing Wreaks Havoc in Northern Philippines, Aggravating Back-to-Back Storm Calamity

Typhoon Yinxing, the 13th major storm to hit the Philippines this year, battered the northern region with floods, landslides, and strong winds before blowing away from the country on Friday, The Associated Press reports.

The typhoon, locally called Marce, caused significant damage to two airports and further exacerbated the ongoing recovery efforts from two powerful storms that ravaged the area in recent weeks.

While there were no immediate reports of casualties from Yinxing, the storm’s impact compounded the devastation left by Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey, which collectively killed at least 151 people and affected nearly 9 million others.

Yinxing, with sustained winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 205 kph, made landfall on Thursday afternoon in Cagayan province, flooding villages, toppling trees and electricity poles, and damaging houses and buildings. More than 40,000 villagers were evacuated to safer ground.

The storm’s fury was particularly felt in the northernmost island province of Batanes, where Governor Marilou Cayco reported that Yinxing’s winds and heavy rain blew away roofs of houses and damaged seaports and two domestic airport terminals.

The typhoon’s damage is expected to complicate the already challenging recovery efforts following the earlier storms. Trami, which dumped one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some regions, led to at least 61 deaths in the province of Batangas, south of Manila. The combined impact of the storms has displaced over 630,000 people, with more than 172,000 remaining in emergency shelters as Yinxing passed through.

The devastation caused by the back-to-back storms has prompted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to cancel his attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru next week, focusing instead on the recovery efforts in the Philippines.