As Supertyphoon Juan (International name: Megi) heads out of the Philippines, it left billions of pesos of damages on staple crops, vital infrastructures, and power transmission lines in Northern Luzon. Thousands of people were dislocated, including some 12 people who died.

As of 4:00 p.m. today, October 20, 2010, Juan was located 350 km West of Laoag City with maximum winds of 175 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 210 kph while moving North Northwest at 7 kph. It is expected that Juan will be located at 440 km west of Laoag City morning of October 21, 2010.

Though Public Storm Warning Signals were downgraded to Signal No. 1 (Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Benguet, Pangasinan, and Zambales), the 300 km radius of Juan still howls and whips the islands including those in the Visayas Region.

On its way out, Juan left 39,897 families with 215,275 individuals uprooted from the communities of Region I, II, III, IV-A, CAR, and NCR. Damaging almost 5,000 houses, 25 schools (amounting to 3.8 Million pesos), and 1.3 Billion pesos worth of crops and fisheries, and leaving widespread power outage.

Though Juan is on its way out, authorities maintained its warning on the possibilities of landslides and flashfloods. Communities located at the coastlines are also warned of the possibilities of storm surges.

Sources:

NDRRMC

CDRC Regional Centers

Local media