CENTRAL LUZON OBSERVER

Typhoon Ramil (codename Lupit) spares Philippines

Excerpt from mb.com.ph

MANILA, October 24, 2009 (AFP) - The Philippines breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday as typhoon "Lupit" (locally named "Ramil"), now downgraded into a tropical storm, veered away from the country which is still dealing with the devastation from two previous deadly storms.

Lupit made a sharp turn northwards, away from the main Philippine island of Luzon and was forecast to continue moving northwards, the government weather station said.

As of 4:00 a.m. Saturday (2000 GMT Friday), Lupit was charted 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of the northern town of Aparri, it said.

Storm alerts were lowered across the northern part of the country where relief operations had been prepared in anticipation of the arrival of a massive typhoon.

However the weather station warned residents in the north to remain on alert for flashfloods and landslides caused by continued rains in an area where the ground is already saturated from previous storms.

The government had already prepared relief goods and rescue equipment and pre-emptively evacuated more than 2,500 people from vulnerable areas during Lupit's approach.

Civil defence personnel had been overwhelmed when storms Ketsana and Parma hit Luzon, one after another from September 26, bringing the worst flooding in the region in four decades as well as massive landslides in the northern mountain areas.

About 1,000 people died due to the two storms and more than 162,000 people are still housed in makeshift evacuation centres because some of their homes are still flooded from rain brought on by Ketsana and Parma, the civil defence office said.