Soaring homeless on CNMI's Saipan

11:31 am on 16 July 2019

More than a thousand people on the Northern Marianas' main island, Saipan, are homeless in the wake of a devastating super-typhoon in October.

A FEMA tent on Saipan

A FEMA tent on Saipan Photo: Mark Rabago

The numbers, from the territory's Homeless Prevention Coalition, represent a 637 percent increase from January last year.

Among the 1,018 homeless people on Saipan are 330 children.

Nearly 500 homes were destroyed and just as many seriously damaged by Typhoon Yutu, which struck the island with winds as high as 290km/h in October.