The typhoon weakened slightly after hitting land, with winds of 160kmh near the centre and gusts of up to 195kmh as of today. It is expected to move north at 19kmh and head to southern Japan by tomorrow, the weather bureau said.
British-based Tropical Storm Risk today downgraded Noul to category four typhoon from category five.
Noul made landfall yesterday in the rice- and corn-producing province of Cagayan, about 400km north of the capital Manila, toppling trees and cutting power in wide areas of the province. Today it was hovering 185km north of the town of Aparri in Cagayan.
"The typhoon has moved away, but our problem so far is how to fix what was destroyed. The small houses of our poor townmates in coastal areas were badly hit," Darwin Tobias, mayor of Santa Ana town in Cagayan, said.
The national disaster agency said two men died from electrocution as they were strapping down a tin roof on a house during the height of the typhoon in Aparri.
More than 3400 residents from Cagayan and Isabela provinces were moved to evacuation centres in schools, gymnasiums and town halls before the typhoon, officials said.
Tobias said some residents from his town started returning to their homes earlier today when the rains stopped.
Despite the destruction, Noul has brought much needed rains to rice and corn farms that had been hit by intense summer heat.
An average of 20 typhoons cross the Philippines annually. More than 8000 people died or went missing and about a million were made homeless by Haiyan, another category 5 typhoon that struck the central Philippines in 2013, bringing 5m-high storm surges.
