A POWERFUL typhoon slammed into the south-east Philippines today, toppling trees, ripping off tin roofs and knocking down power lines as it blew across island provinces from which nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated.

Coastguard personnel were rescuing residents stranded in chest-deep waters in a southern province, where pounding rains swamped villages in brownish water.

In southern Cagayan de Oro city, footage showed two rescuers struggling to keep a month-old baby above the waters in a laundry basin and shielded from the wind and rain with an umbrella.

Weather experts said Typhoon Rai further strengthened with sustained winds of 121 miles per hour and gusts of up to 168 mph as it blew from the Pacific Ocean into the Siargao Islands. There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.

“I’m scared and praying here in my house that this stops now. The wind outside is so strong it’s cutting down trees,” Teresa Lozano, a resident of eastern MacArthur town, in coastal Leyte province, told a local radio station.

Disaster response officials said about 10,000 villages lie in the projected path of the typhoon, which has a 248-mile-wide rain band and is one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

The coastguard said it has grounded all vessels, stranding nearly 4,000 passengers and ferry and cargo ship workers in dozens of southern and central ports. Several mostly domestic flights have been cancelled and schools and workplaces were shut in the most vulnerable areas.

More than 98,000 people have been evacuated to safety, the government’s disaster-response agency said.

Crowding in evacuation centres was complicating efforts to keep people safely distanced after authorities detected the country’s first infections caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Intensified vaccinations were also halted in provinces likely to experience stormy weather.