A super typhoon is headed for the northern Philippines on Tuesday and an evacuation order has been issued for coastal communities in the area.
With wind gusts of up to 50 meters per second, the typhoon, known as Doksuri, is approaching a group of three sparsely populated islands off the northern tip of the main island of Luzon, according to the country’s weather agency.
The storm, known as Egay in the Philippines, is expected to move in over or pass very close to the Babuyan Islands or Cagayan province on Wednesday afternoon, before moving towards Taiwan and eastern China. Over 200 millimeters of rain is also expected to fall in these areas.
Three of the five Babuyan islands are populated, with around 20,000 inhabitants. People living in coastal communities have been ordered to leave their homes and fishermen have been told to pull their boats out of the water.
The weather agency warns that storm waves of over three meters may hit some low-lying areas, as well as landslides in the mountainous northern provinces as a result of the heavy rain expected in the coming days.
The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 strong storms every year, resulting in hundreds of deaths.