Philippines Typhoon Hagupit evacuation stepped up

About half a million people have fled coastal villages and evacuated their homes in the Philippines as a powerful storm approaches the archipelago.

Typhoon Hagupit, which weakened slightly on Friday night, is due to make landfall on Saturday evening.

It is on course for the Eastern and Northern Samar provinces and the city of Tacloban, where thousands were killed by Typhoon Haiyan a year ago.

Gusts peaked at 230km/h (143mph) but dropped to 195km/h (121mph) on Friday.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded after Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific cancelled more than 150 flights to the central and southern Philippines on Friday and Saturday, and sea travel services were suspended.

'Massive scale'

The BBC's Jonathan Head in the capital Manila said that it is one of the largest peacetime evacuations the country has ever seen.

He said people were being moved to higher ground and into more solid buildings such as churches, schools and sports stadiums.

However, no-one is sure where the worst affected places will be because typhoons change direction and intensity, our correspondent adds.

The typhoon is around 600km across, but weakened slightly on Friday, and was downgraded from "super typhoon" status

Typhoons change direction and intensity, and so officials are unsure of which areas in the Philippines will be worst hit

President Benigno Aquino, who met disaster agency chiefs on Friday afternoon, has ordered food supplies to be sent to affected areas, as well as troops and police officers to be deployed to prevent looting in the aftermath.

Local media reported Mr Aquino as saying there was "no indication" for now that Hagupit would be as strong as Haiyan.

Haiyan - known as Yolanda in the Philippines - was the most powerful typhoon ever recorded over land. It tore through the central Philippines in November 2013, leaving more than 7,000 dead or missing.

Hagupit's huge diameter of 600km (370 miles) meant that about 50 million people, or half the nation's population, were living in vulnerable areas, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman told AFP news agency.

Hundreds of thousands sought shelter as the typhoon neared

The latest update from Philippine weather authorities said that Hagupit, which means "smash" in Filipino, was weakening slightly, though it still has powerful gusts.

It could bring storm surges up to one storey high, as well as heavy rain and the risk of landslides, officials have warned.

Schools and government offices are closed in some areas and there were long queues at shops and petrol stations as people stocked up on supplies.

'Deja vu'

In Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people, many have taken shelter in the sports stadium.

"It's deja vu, but not the same as last year with Haiyan," local resident Mariano Tan Jr told the BBC.

"We're already prepared... we've stored basic commodities - water, rice, beans, fuel. We're also prepared in case of a power cut.

"We intend to stay," he added. "We survived last year, we will do it again tomorrow. We will still stand our ground because no calamities can break us apart."

Thousands of passengers were left stranded as domestic flights were cancelled and sea travel was suspended

About 19,000 people from coastal villages are in 26 evacuation centres, Tacloban's disaster office spokesman Ilderando Bernadas told Reuters.

He said that number was expected to double as the authorities began forcing people to evacuate.

Tacloban's Deputy Mayor Jerry Yaokasin told the BBC's Newsday: "We haven't yet fully recovered from last year's super-typhoon Haiyan and here we go again.

"It's stirring up a lot of emotions in our hearts and bringing back so many painful memories of what happened during super typhoon Haiyan."

Residents have been crowding into shops to buy food supplies ahead of the typhoon's arrival

The US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center had classified Hagupit as a super typhoon but downgraded it on Friday morning. It remains the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year.

Meteorologists had said there was a chance Hagupit could veer north towards Japan and miss the Philippines altogether, but this scenario is increasingly seen as unlikely.

The Philippines gives its own names to typhoons once they move into Philippine waters, rather than using the international storm-naming system.