A powerful typhoon is approaching the Philippines, where many shelters are still full after a recent storm

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Villagers in northern Philippine provinces were forced to evacuate Wednesday as a powerful typhoon approached the country still reeling from a recent storm that left at least 182 dead and missing and emergency shelters full of displaced people.

Typhoon Kong-rey was last observed 350 kilometers east of northern Cagayan province, packing sustained winds of up to 185 km per hour and gusts of up to 230 km per hour. According to forecasters, the situation at sea could worsen further.

The wind was blowing northwesterly and was expected to pass near the northernmost Philippine province of Batanes before hitting southeastern Taiwan on Thursday.

“We are still recovering from the two previous typhoons and storms and here we go again,” Batanes Governor Marilou Cayco told The Associated Press.

“We are now going around to monitor the forced evacuation of people, especially those whose homes were severely damaged by the last storm,” Cayco said.

Elsewhere in the northern Philippines, more than 300,000 people were displaced last week Tropical Storm Tramiremained in emergency shelters as the new typhoon approached, Office of Civil Defense officials said.

Forecasters also warned of a “life-threatening storm surge of 2 to 3 meters (6.5 to 9.8 feet)” that could be caused by Kong-rey in the low-lying coasts of Batanes and the nearby Babuyan archipelago.

All ships and cargo vessels were advised to remain in port and those at sea were advised to seek shelter or a safe haven as quickly as possible until the wind and waves calmed.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., who oversees disaster relief, ordered the forced evacuation of people in high-risk areas threatened by Kong-rey, locally called Leon.

“We always strive to ensure that there are no casualties in disasters, so we strongly urge the public to observe our protocols,” Teodoro said.

Although Kong-rey was expected to blow off the northern Philippines, the vast rain band with a width of more than 600 kilometers (373 miles) could affect the entire northern Luzon region, the country’s most populous region, the government said.

Tropical Storm Trami, which barreled out of northern Philippines last Friday, left at least 145 dead and 37 missing, mainly due to widespread flooding and landslides, and affected more than 7 million people in nearly 11,000 mostly rural villages, according to reports. the government’s disaster management agency.

More than 111,000 homes were damaged, many submerged by floods and swollen rivers. Trami dumped up to two months of rain in just 24 hours in some regions, causing flash floods that swept away cars and trapped people on their roofs.

At the height of last week’s attack, officials in the hard-hit Bicol region, southeast of the capital Manila, frantically called for more rescue boats to rescue thousands of villagers trapped in rising waters.

The disaster-prone Philippines is hit by about twenty storms and typhoons every year. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful recorded tropical cyclones in the world, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, leveled entire villages and caused several cargo ships to run aground inland and crash into homes and people in the central part of the Philippines clashed.