The death toll from a super typhoon that struck the main Philippine island of Luzon Sunday has risen to 16.
Typhoon Goni made landfall on Luzon carrying maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometers per hour, making it the strongest typhoon to hit the Pacific archipelago this year. Goni’s arrival comes a week after Typhoon Molave hit the same region, killing 22 people.
Richard Gordon, the chief of the Philippine Red Cross, says up to 90% of homes across Catanduanes Island, which was in the path of Typhoon Goni on its way to Luzon were damaged or destroyed.
Goni caused power outages, infrastructure damage and major floods. Video footage from local and social media showed rivers overflowing and some dikes destroyed, submerging villages and damaging farmland. Officials also say a landfall of volcanic ash destroyed hundreds of homes located near the active Mayon volcano in the province of Albay.
Nearly 350,000 people were in evacuation centers, the Philippine Disaster Management Agency said Sunday, lowering the figure of nearly a million reported Saturday.
Reuters news agency says President Rodrigo Duterte will make an aerial inspection of the typhoon damage on Monday.
Goni weakened as it made its way past Manila on a path to the South China Sea. But forecasters are warning that another Pacific storm, dubbed Atsani, is on a path towards the Philippines.
