By Laura Sharman and Caitlin Danaher, CNN
A second typhoon in a week has made landfall in the Philippines and killed at least two people, with nearly 1 million residents fleeing the looming destructive winds and life-threatening storm surges.
Fung-wong, known locally as Uwan, follows on the heels of Typhoon Kalmaegi, which killed almost 200 people in the central part of the archipelago nation, as well as five people in Vietnam.
The eye of the typhoon made landfall on Sunday night, barrelling over the coastal municipality of Dinalungan, in the northeastern Aurora province, according to the country's weather service.
Civil defense reported that one person drowned in Catanduanes province and firefighters recovered the body of a woman trapped under debris of a collapsed home in Catbalogan City, according to Reuters.
Almost 920,000 residents were evacuated from 11 regions on Sunday, according to the country's Presidential Communications Office.
A destroyed house, as Super Typhoon Fung-wong hit the coast in Pandan, Catanduanes province. Photo: HANDOUT/PANDAN-MDRRMO
"People are a little shellshocked," Butch Meily, president of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF), told CNN, noting this marks the country's fourth major typhoon, in addition to two earthquakes, within the past seven weeks.
"We're getting ready but this is starting to test our level of experience."
Fung-wong is forecast to strike eastern and northern areas, including Luzon - the nation's most populous island, home to Manila - as well as the Visayas islands and Siargao, known as the country's surfing capital.
Its destructive winds have already caused damage in Catanduanes province on its approach, according to Meily.
"We're in red alert," the Philippines' Social Welfare Secretary, Rex Gatchalian, told CNN Newsroom.
Thousands of families are sheltering in gymnasiums, theaters and government facilities and the government is providing food and essentials, Gatchalian said.
"For families who are still in their homes, they're being forcibly evacuated already," he added.
Recovery efforts have been interrupted in Kalmaegi-stricken Cebu and Davao to the south, to concentrate all available resources on preparing for Fung-wong, including a 24-hour operation centre near the capital Manila, said Meily of the PDRF, a major private-sector coordinator for disaster response.
"But our funds are starting to get exhausted because of the number of emergencies," he added.
A destroyed house, as Super Typhoon Fung-wong hit the coast in Pandan, Catanduanes province. Photo: HANDOUT/PANDAN-MDRRMO
The country's meteorological agency PAGASA has upgraded Fung-wong to a super typhoon on its intensity scale, recording maximum wind speeds of 185km/h and gusts of 230km/h. However, it remains below the super-typhoon threshold on more widely used scales like that of the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which requires winds exceeding 240km/h.
The typhoon's massive circulation, spanning 1800km, is enough to cover the entire country, exceeding Typhoon Kalmaegi, PAGASA weather specialist Benison Estareja told CNN.
"It's much stronger, but the casualties and the damages all depend on the preparation of the Philippine government. And we've actually learned from the previous Typhoon Kalmaegi as to how we can prepare for the incoming super typhoon," he said.
Landslides and severe flooding are expected along Luzon's east coast, with more than 200mm of rainfall in the next 24 hours.
Manila is also forecast to face heavy rain and a high risk of flooding, with up to 200mm, according to the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
More than 300 domestic and international flights have been cancelled, according to the Philippines' Civil Aviation Authority.
The Philippines is no stranger to typhoons, and Fung-wong is the 21st named storm to impact the country this year, according to local officials.
Its predecessor Kalmaegi left a trail of death and devastation as it tore through the central Philippines on Tuesday, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and displacing tens of thousands of people. At least 188 people were killed, most in Cebu province, a tourist hotspot, local authorities said.
Though not the strongest storm to hit, Kalmaegi was slow-moving and dumped huge volumes of water over highly populated areas. Officials said most people died from drowning.
Its impact was worsened by clogged waterways in an already flood-prone area, and an apparent lack of understanding of early warnings, Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy administrator for the Philippines Office of Civil Defense, told local media.
The Philippines is one of Asia's most flood-prone countries but this year it has also been mired in a massive corruption scandal involving flood control projects that have brought thousands of protesters onto the streets.
Dozens of legislators, senators and construction companies have been accused of receiving kickbacks with money intended for thousands of flood control projects.
Scientists have long warned the human-caused climate crisis - for which industrialised nations bear greater historical responsibility - has only exacerbated the scale and intensity of regional storms that disproportionately impact populations in the Global South.
The Philippines is one area where the weather is changing, with more intense storms and severe tropical storms with a wide rain band, Meily said.
"In the past, we used to focus on where the storm would make landfall. But now we have to consider the rain band because it's so wide in scope that areas far away from where the storm makes land are getting flooded."
The western Pacific is the most active tropical basin on Earth but global ocean temperatures have been at record levels for each of the last eight years.
Hotter oceans, fuelled by human-caused global warming, provide ample energy for storms to strengthen.
The climate crisis is supercharging rainfall events as warmer air can hold more moisture, which it then wrings out over towns, cities and communities, as it already has this week in Southeast Asia.
- CNN
