Typhoon Yinxing floods villages, rips off roofs and damages two domestic airports in northern Philippines

Typhoon Yinxing causes floods, landslides in the Philippines, damaging airports and complicating recovery from previous storms.

Typhoon Yinxing battered the northern Philippines with floods and landslides before blowing away from the country on Friday (November 8, 2024), leaving two airports damaged and aggravating a calamity caused by back-to-back storms that 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 called 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 kph (127 mph), according to government forecasters. It is expected to weaken further before hitting Vietnam.

“The typhoon flooded villages, toppled trees and electricity poles, and damaged houses and buildings in Cagayan province, where Yinxing made landfall Thursday (November 7, 2024) 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 fierce winds and rain blew away roofs of houses and damaged seaports and two domestic airport terminals.”

“More details of damage, including in two northern mountain towns hit by landslides, were expected after provinces battered by the typhoon complete an assessment,” officials said.

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