A super typhoon barreled into the southern part of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon on Sunday, bringing “catastrophic” violent winds and intense rain with two landfalls so far, the country’s weather bureau said.
When Goni slammed into Catanduanes Island early Sunday morning, home to 260,000 people, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center estimated its peak winds were around 195 mph.
The victims included one person who was reportedly hit by a tree and a five-year-old who was washed away after a river overflowed in Albay province.
Governor Al Francis Bichara also received reports of volcanic mud flows, as well as electricity supply and communication service outages.
Video footage by news channels and on social media showed rivers overflowing and some dikes destroyed, submerging villages.
The extreme winds were as strong as any landfalling storm on record on the planet and comparable to Super Typhoon Haiyan, the catastrophic storm that devastated Tacloban City in the Philippines in 2013 and killed more than 6,000.
“Goni is the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone” in history, said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections and co-founder of Weather Underground. The previous record was held by Super Typhoons Meranti and Haiyan, which made landfall in the Philippines in 2016 and 2013 respectively.
Authorities shut Manila’s international airport to all flights for 24 hours from 10 a.m. local time. Flag carrier Philippine Airlines canceled 20 international and 25 domestic flights for Sunday and Monday, while Cebu Pacific scrapped 13 scheduled for Sunday.