Typhoon Fung-Wong struck Dinapigue municipality in Isabela province of northern Philippines late Sunday. Photo by Dinapigue Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office/EPA
Fung-WoFung-Wong weakened into a typhoon Monday after hitting the Sierra Madre mountain range in northern Philippines, killing at least eight people and displacing some 1.4 million.
The storm, known as Uwan in the Philippines, is moving north-northwest into the South China Sea and was headed northward toward Taiwan by midweek with heavy rain, strong winds and flooding midweek, The Guardian reported.
School closures were announced in parts of the eastern county of Hualien, and evacuation orders issued in flood and landslide-prone areas, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.
“Sierra Madre indeed weakened Uwan into a typhoon category upon landfall primarily because of the friction,” Marcelino Villafuerte II, the deputy administrator for research and development with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, told Philstar Global.
“Sierra Madre distorted the structure of the typhoon as it passed through the mountain range with elevations of approximately 2,000 meters [1.24 miles],” the PAGASA official explained. The mountain range runs 339 miles.
Satellite imagery showed the eye disappeared after passing through the “Sierra Madre, [which] indeed weakened Uwan into a typhoon category upon landfall primarily because of the friction,” Villafuerte said.
Fung-Wong made landfall at 9:10 p.m. local time Sunday with winds of 115 mph and gusts as high as 143 mph.
In the Western Pacific Oecan, a super typhoon has sustained winds of at least 150 mph, which is a Category 4 or Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific.
After striking Aurora province in Luzon, the country’s most populous island Sunday night, it weakened to a typhoon hours later.
The damage was less severe than days earlier when Kalmaegi left nearly 200 people dead in central Philippines. But several communities were cut off by floods.
The BBC reported people came out to see damage after the winds died down.
Super Typhoon Fung-wong was the 21st typhoon to hit the Philippines this year.
