A powerful typhoon wrecked houses, caused towering tidal surges and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee to emergency shelters as it cut across the northern Philippines on Sunday in the sixth major storm to hit the country in less than a month.

Authorities in the Philippines on Thursday ordered evacuations in northeastern towns ahead of the arrival of Super Typhoon Usagi, as the storm-ravaged nation prepares for its fifth typhoon in a month and braces for a sixth later in the week.