Hanoi (VNA) – The Philippines issued fresh weather warnings on November 12 as the fifth major storm in three weeks began impacting the archipelago following the recent Typhoon Toraji.
The country’s national weather agency said the tropical storm Usagi is now just two days away from the coast of Luzon and is gaining strength.
Usagi has strengthened to 85km an hour and may start affecting the region late in the day and reach typhoon category by November 13, a day ahead of landfall, it added.
Usagi marks the fifth to impact the Philippines in under a month, following Tropical Storm Trami, Typhoon Yinxing, Super Typhoon Kong-rey and Typhoon Toraji. About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people and keeping millions in enduring poverty.
After Usagi, the weather service said Tropical Storm Man-yi, currently near the Northern Mariana Islands, may also threaten the Philippines next week.
A recent study showed that storms in Asia-Pacific are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change./.
