Philippines typhoon brings Christmas Day misery

AKIPRESS.COM - Typhoon Phanfone has pummelled the central Philippines on Christmas Day, bringing a wet and miserable holiday season to millions. Thousands were stranded at shuttered ports or evacuation centres while others sheltered in rain-soaked homes as Phanfone crossed from one island to another for the second day, Guardian reports.
The typhoon toppled houses and trees and blacked out cities in the Philippines' most storm-prone region. More than 10,000 people spent the night in schools, gyms and government buildings hastily converted into evacuation centres as the typhoon made landfall on Tuesday, civil defence officials said.
More islands along lay in Phanfone's projected path towards the South China Sea.
More than 25,000 people trying to get home for the traditional Christmas Eve midnight dinner remained stranded at ports on Christmas Day with ferry services closed, the coast guard said. Scores of flights to the region also remained cancelled, though the capital Manila, on the northern edge, was being spared.
The Philippines is the first major landmass facing the Pacific cyclone belt and gets hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year. A study by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank found the most frequent storms cut 1% from the Philippine economic output and the stronger ones by nearly 3%.