Philippines shuts schools, scraps flights as Typhoon Co-May nears
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Around 70 domestic and international flights have been cancelled due to the storms.
PHOTO: EPA
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MANILA – The Philippines shut down schools and cancelled flights on July 24 as typhoon-driven rains pounded the northern island of Luzon, a situation President Ferdinand Marcos Jr called “the new normal”.
Typhoon Co-May, which was upgraded from a tropical storm overnight, follows days of monsoon rains that have killed at least 19 people and left another 11 missing across the archipelago since July 18, according to the national disaster agency.
With maximum sustained winds of 120kmh, the typhoon was expected to make landfall on the west coast in either La Union or Ilocos Sur by the morning of July 25, the country’s weather service said.
Mr Marcos said on July 24 that climate change meant Filipinos needed to be thinking about how to adapt to a “new normal”.
“This is not an extraordinary situation any more... This will be our lives no matter what we do,” he told a televised Cabinet briefing, adding that the country should plan for the long term in addressing natural disasters. “This is the way it’s going to be as far as we know for... many decades to come, so let’s just prepare,” he said.
“We have to understand that the climate has changed, the rain patterns have changed,” he added, pointing to recent devastating flooding in the US state of Texas.
Around 70 domestic and international flights have been cancelled due to the storms, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said. The government later announced that classes across Luzon would remain suspended through July 25.
Tens of thousands were evacuated across Manila earlier this week from flood waters that swamped some neighbourhoods in waist-deep water and left residents of nearby provinces stranded and in need of rescue by boat.
As at July 24, at least several thousand people in Manila remained unable to return to their homes.
“We cannot send them home yet because it is still raining and some typhoons are still expected to affect the country,” rescue coordinator Ria Mei Pangilinan told AFP. “There might be more (evacuees) if the rain does not stop.”
Typhoon Co-May was about 105km off the country’s west coast as at 8pm local time. AFP
