MANILA, Philippines—A potential supertyphoon plodded toward northern Luzon on Sunday, prompting civilian and military officials to dispatch emergency relief supplies and life-saving equipment to the region.

Currently designated locally as Typhoon “Ramil” and internationally as “Lupit,” the 18th weather disturbance this year was plotted at 4 p.m. Sunday in the Pacific Ocean 1,150 kilometers east of Aparri, Cagayan.

Packing peak winds of 175 km per hour gusting up to 210 kph, Ramil was “almost stationary” for a few hours Sunday before moving slowly west. It was expected to smack Cagayan either Wednesday evening or early Thursday, weather officials said.

“The more days it spends over sea, the more it is intensifying,” said Nathaniel Cruz of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

Cruz said Ramil could turn into a supertyphoon with winds up to 215 kph and smash across Cagayan, Kalinga, Ilocos Norte, Apayao and the Batanes group of islands.

“Those in critical areas should be evacuated now that there is still time,” Pagasa chief Prisco Nilo told a news conference. “It would be more difficult to rescue people in the middle of a typhoon.”

With the country still reeling from back-to-back typhoons that ignited flooding and landslides and left more than 800 people dead, the military announced on Sunday it was deploying 500 soldiers, trucks and speedboats for rescue missions in the Ilocos region.

“All the units of the Northern Luzon Command have also been alerted,” said Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) has begun sending 187,000 pounds of relief goods to the northern provinces, said Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres, council spokesperson.

Preemptive evacuation

Two C-130 planes took off from Manila to deliver 46,297 pounds of food and emergency items to central Luzon and 48,501 pounds of relief goods to the Cordillera Administrative Region.

“Response assets are put on a standby for any possible preemptive evacuation,” Torres said.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Sunday said a relief caravan for the victims of Tropical Storm “Pepeng” in the northern and central areas of Luzon was being pre-positioned in anticipation of Ramil’s onslaught.

“We felt it was better to advance the delivery of goods so we started pre-positioning on Sunday,” Secretary Esperanza Cabral said in a text message to the Inquirer.

The caravan includes a hundred truckloads of relief goods to be distributed to some 500,000 families in 19 provinces in the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, and the Cordillera.

Private initiatives

In addition, more than 30 private and international organizations have pitched in for the relief caravan, the DSWD said.

The two major television networks—ABS-CBN and GMA 7—have raised between them several hundred million pesos worth of relief goods that they have been distributing since Tropical Storm “Ondoy” struck on Sept. 26 in Metro Manila.

Pepeng followed early this month and hovered over the north for almost two weeks, triggering floods and landslides.

In a statement, Cabral said more than 1.5 million victims of the storms continued to receive government aid.

Of the figure, 1.1 million people in 222,292 families were affected by Ondoy, while 336,346 people in 70,612 families were displaced by Pepeng, the DSWD said. The count includes those in evacuation centers.

The DSWD alone has given P34.8 million worth of food and nonfood items to Ondoy victims, while assistance to Pepeng victims has reached P31 million, the statement said.

Contingency checklist

The NDCC has also started implementing a contingency checklist, which must be filled out by local civil defense officials upon receiving disaster warnings.

The measure was prompted by complaints by local executives that they did not receive proper warning of the massive release of water in major dams that worsened flooding in Luzon at the height of Pepeng.

In a memorandum Oct. 15, the NDCC said the submission of the form was required to determine whether each warning issued had been received, acknowledged and acted upon by local officials.

The memo was issued by NDCC executive officer Glenn Rabonza as directed by Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr.

Under the checklist, civil defense officials would indicate whether they have made public announcements of the impending disaster, activated road clearing and emergency engineering teams and medical response teams, among others.

Items in the checklist include those that needed to be evacuated—such as residents whose homes are poorly constructed and those living along riverbanks and mountainsides.

The list also indicates how much water, food, clothing and medicine had been stockpiled pending the disaster and whether back-up communication systems and power supply had been prepared.

Evacuation urged

Torres said people living in coastal areas, river banks, mountain slopes “and other landslide-prone areas should evacuate now.”

He said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had ordered the police to guard abandoned homes in the path of the typhoon, to protect them from looters.

“Some are hesitant to leave their homes because they could be broken into,” Torres said.

Since Friday, he said, government agencies had been “pre-positioning relief goods” in the Batanes island group.

Government agencies are also under orders to “pre-position rescue personnel and equipment in these identified areas.”

The weather service warned that seven dams in northern Luzon had been releasing water in anticipation of heavy rains.

Widespread flooding killed 380 people and displaced 4.34 million others in and around Manila on Sept. 26 as Ondoy brought record rainfall to the metropolis, the NDCC said in an updated toll.

Pepeng hit northern Luzon a week later and hovered over the region for over a week, triggering landslides and floods that left 438 people dead and displaced 3.8 million others, it added.

About 266,000 people remain in crowded evacuation camps more than two weeks later, and a bacteria-borne disease called leptospirosis has killed another 93 people in flooded areas since then, the health department said. With a report from Agence France-Presse