MANILA, Philippines — One of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded slammed into the Philippines on Friday, cutting communications and blocking roads in the center of the country amid worries of serious damage and casualties.
Telephone lines appeared down as it was difficult to get through to the landfall site 405 miles southeast of Manila where Typhoon Haiyan slammed into a rural area of the country.
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Weather officials said that Haiyan had sustained winds at 147 mph, with gusts of 170 mph when it made landfall at Eastern Samar province’s Guiuan township. After hitting Guiuan, the typhoon pummeled nearby Leyte island.
The local weather bureau makes estimates based on longer periods of time than others, such as the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which said shortly before the typhoon made landfall that its maximum sustained winds were 195 mph, with gusts up to 235 mph.
Jeff Masters, a former hurricane meteorologist who is meteorology director at the private firm Weather Underground, said the storm had been poised to be the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded at landfall. He warned of “catastrophic damage.”
Haiyan’s wind strength at landfall had been expected to beat out Hurricane Camille, which was 190 mph at landfall in the United States in 1969, Masters said.
Already authorities reported having trouble reaching colleagues, with forecaster Mario Palafox of the national weather bureau saying contact had been lost with staff in the landfall area.
More than 125,000 people had been evacuated from towns and villages in the typhoon’s path, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. Among them were thousands of residents of Bohol who had been camped in tents and other makeshift shelters after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated many towns on the island province.
Masters said the Philippines might get a small break because the storm is so fast moving that flooding from heavy rains – usually the cause of most deaths from typhoons in the Philippines – may not be as bad.
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