RAMMB/US NOAA/Himawari 8
Nika leaves PAR as Ofel churns closer
Severe tropical storm Nika left the Philippine area of responsibility on Tuesday afternoon, as another cyclone bore down on Luzon.
Nika left PAR at 2 p.m., days after it prompted the evacuation of some 32,000 people in vulnerable areas.
While the government reported no casualties from Nika, it said around 15,000 people were still sheltering at mainly government-run evacuation centers.
Utility workers on Tuesday repaired damaged bridges, restored electricity and cleared roads blocked by landslides, fallen trees and power pylons, the civil defense office said.
The full extent of the damage to private homes was not immediately known, but 29 towns and cities were still without power even as ports reopened and young people in nearly 600 towns and cities began returning to class.
"A small number of people were preemptively evacuated but they have since returned home. Classes at the collegiate level have resumed," civil defense official Randy Nicolas of Ilocos Norte province on Luzon's South China Sea coast told AFP.
Meanwhile, PAGASA warned that northern Luzon was “at risk of heavy rainfall, severe wind, and, possibly, storm surge inundation from Ofel which may cause considerable impacts.”
Ofel has strengthened to 85 kilometers per hour and may start affecting the region late in the day and reach typhoon category by Wednesday, a day ahead of landfall, it added.
Coastal waters will be rough and "mariners of small seacraft... are advised not to venture out to sea under these conditions".
After Ofel, the weather service said Tropical Storm Man-yi, currently near the Northern Mariana Islands, could also threaten the Philippines.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people and keeping millions in enduring poverty.
A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.