MANILA—Tropical depression Zoraida, the 25th storm to enter the Philippines this year, made landfall Tuesday in Davao Oriental province, around 290 miles from areas hardest hit by super-typhoon Haiyan.
The storm’s location away from cities and provinces devastated by both the typhoon, and a massive earthquake that rattled Cebu and Bohol in October, minimizes risks that could have complicated the already monumental task of providing relief to the victims of those earlier disasters.
Before her landfall Tuesday, weather watchers had closely monitoring Zoraida to see if her winds would intensify and shift direction further north toward the storm-ravaged province of Leyte. For now, the Philippines appears to have avoided another tragedy.
Zoraida made landfall at 9 a.m. local time in Caraga, a coastal town in Davao Oriental, with sustained winds of 34 miles an hour, far weaker than super-typhoon Haiyan’s 146-mile-per-hour sustained winds, state weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, or PAGASA, reported.
Those winds whipped up storm surges that rose to 15 feet in some places, causing tsunami-like waves that devastated many areas in central Philippines.
Zoraida is moving at a quick clip of 19 miles an hour, and dropping light rain. Weather forescasters predict she will pour light to moderate rains from Tuesday through early Thursday, mostly in the southern region of Mindanao, around 600 miles from Manila. Unlike Haiyan, which stretched 248 miles in diameter, Zoraida is only 186 miles wide, which means her impact on Leyte will be limited to rain.
PAGASA weather forecaster Jun Galang said the outer band of Zoraida will bring rain to some of the typhoon and earthquake affected areas — and while the amount of rainfall isn’t expected to be substantial, the weather bureau is still warning against possible landslides, given the loose soil conditions caused by the earthquake and that water saturation brought by the last typhoon.
Mr. Galang said gale warnings were raised in the eastern seaboard of the Philippines, but Zoraida isn’t expected to generate damaging storm surges.
Zoraida is moving westward and is expected to exit through the Philippines’ westernmost island of Palawan by Thursday afternoon.
For the latest news and analysis, follow @WSJAsia