Super Typhoon Haima slammed into the northern Philippines on Wednesday, displacing tens of thousands of people and bringing torrential rains and winds that shattered glass windows and ripped off rooftops, AP quoted officials as saying. Haima, the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines in three years, made landfall over the town of Penablanca in the province of Cagayan, where power was cut off hours earlier. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometres per hour (kph) and gusts of up to 315 kph, the Philippines' weather bureau said. In Cagayan alone, at least 23,000 people were evacuated from towns and villages prone to floods and landslides, according to provincial Governor Manuel Mamba. In the city of Tuguegarao, tin roofs of schools used as evacuation centres were torn off by the winds and emergency teams were unable to go out due to the heavy rains, said Mayor Jefferson Soriano. The roads are impassable because trees and electric posts have been toppled and they now litter the streets," he told Manila radio station DZMM. "Many roofs have been torn off and the city hall's glass windows have been shattered." Some 5 million people were at high risk within the 100-kilometre radius of Haima, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The storm was headed west-north-west at 25 kph and was expected to cross the Philippines' northern island of Luzon before exiting Thursday evening.
