This image provided by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory shows Typhoon Lupit at 2 a.m. ET on Monday. (U.S. Naval Research Lab/Associated Press)

Philippine authorities applied the lessons from recent deadly storms Monday by stocking up on food and clothes early while moving residents out of harm's way as a powerful typhoon threatened the country's rain-soaked northeast.

Typhoon Lupit, packing winds of 175 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 210 km/h, was not expected to make landfall before Thursday, giving officials time to organize food supplies and issue landslide and flood warnings.

The government was moving fast to prevent any loss of life after back-to-back storms on Sept. 26 and Oct. 3 killed more than 850 people, most of them buried in dozens of mudslides along the northern Cordillera mountains.

Hundreds of families living in danger zones — low-lying areas, near cliffs and mountain slopes —were still in evacuation centres or staying with relatives since Typhoon Parma damaged their homes early this month. They will ride out the latest typhoon in shelters.

Village heads were using megaphones to warn about the impending typhoon, and sirens will be sounded once it makes landfall.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has blamed extreme weather caused by climate change, but her critics say the calamity was magnified by poor city planning and millions of squatters living along riverbanks and blocking waterways with their shanties.

The urban poor, sources of cheap labour and votes during elections, make up for almost half of Manila's 12 million people.