Philippines on alert as tropical storm lands
MANILA ム A tropi-cal storm made land-fall Saturday in the eastern Philippine prov-ince of Samar and is headed towards Lu-zon, including Metro Manila.
State weather fore-caster Ricky Fabrigas told Daily Manila Shimbun in an inter-view they raised storm signal number two in Luzonユs southern prov-inces as tropical storm Rumbia (local name Gorio) neared Sorsogon province.
Rumbia is packing winds of 65kph and gustiness of up to 80kph as it moves northwest at 24 kph, the state weather agen-cy said in its Saturday afternoon bulletin.
Fabrigas said Rumbia will be close to Metro Manila and most of Central Luzon Sunday morning.
In an interview over government radio, Depu-ty Presidential Spokesper-son Abigail Valte said the government has provided P6.9 million worth of emergency relief for those who would be affected by the storm.
メWe continue to mo-nitor those areas (af-fected) in cooperation with the local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils (DRRMCs),モ she said.
A Vietnamese cargo vessel which was an-chored at Legazpi, drifted to another village due to the stormユs winds.
The vessel has been detained by customs official since last year for carrying 94,000 sacks of rice. Robina Asido/DMS
