Typhoon Hagupit weakens en route to Manila

Typhoon Hagupit continued to dump heavy rain on the Philippines early on Monday, packing sustained winds of up to 120 kilometers per hour (75 mph) and gusts of up to 150 kph. This was considerably down from wind speeds reported by the Philippines PAGASA weather bureau 24 hours earlier.

Hagupit battered the Philippines after it made landfall on the country's eastern coast on Saturday evening, knocking down power and telephone lines, ripping off roofs and outright flattening many homes.

But the death toll remained in single figures early on Monday, with Reuters news agency putting the number at four, while DPA reported that a total of eight people had been killed.

Lessons learned

Local officials credited a mass evacuation ahead of the arrival of Hagupit with keeping the casualty number so low. Hundreds of thousands of residents were evacuated to churches, schools, or public gymnasiums in advance.

"We're happy that we've learned our lessons from our past experiences. This is a good sign," Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross told Reuters.

Pang was referring to the death and destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing when it swept across the Philippines 13 months ago.

PAGASA also reported that Hagupit's diameter had also shrunk to 450 kilometers and that it was also advancing at a rate of 10 kilometers per hour towards Manila, where schools, government offices, and the financial markets were to remain closed on Monday.

In parts of the east of the country, where the worst of the storm had passed by Monday, some residents began returning to their homes to survey the damage caused by the most powerful storm to hit the Philippines this year.

pfd/bk (Reuters, dpa, AP, AFP)