Typhoon lashes Yap, emergency declared

[senorpepr]

A STATE of emergency was declared today after a devastating typhoon swept through the remote Micronesian islands of Yap, an official statement said.

Packing winds of 212km/h and whipping up waves of more than 10 metres, Typhoon Sudal hit Yap on Friday, battering the chain of atolls and its 8000 residents for more than five hours.

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) government said in a statement that the United States had ordered disaster aid in the wake of the emergency declaration.

It said no one had been killed as the eye of the typhoon passed 53km offshore, although a person died of natural causes.

The statement said over 90 per cent of public utilities and public properties, including the hospital, were damaged leaving most villages without water and power.

More than 90 per cent of private homes were damaged or destroyed. Nearly all crops were destroyed.

Earlier a Yap State official, Tom Lutte, told the Pacific Daily News in Guam that the islands, famous for their giant stone money, had been devastated.

"Trees are down any direction you turn," Lutte said.

"It's a scene of wreckage all around."

A group of American tourists were yesterday flown out to the US territory of Guam, 828 kilometres to the north, expressing astonishment at the scale of the disaster.

"We're from the East Coast so we're used to hurricanes, but I've never seen anything like this," said Julia Llewellyn of Maryland.

A Yapese student, Dominic Choay told the newspaper his grandmother believed Sudal was the worst storm to hit Yap: "Everything is gone except cement."

Washington DC resident Raoul Kulberg said the Yapese people were amazingly helpful to the tourists.

"Their homes were destroyed, they lost everything, and there they were trying to help us, doing things to get us comfortable," he told the Pacific Daily News.

FSM is composed of 607 small islands extending over a large area of the central Pacific, between Japan and Australia with a population of around 106,000.

A former United Nations Trust Territory under US administration, FSM became independent in 1982. It retains a compact of free association with Washington.

Last July another typhoon hit the neighbouring state of Chuuk, killing 37 people.

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