Super Typhoon Haiyan makes Katrina look like weak cousin

Death toll rises in Philippines as Super Typhoon Haiyan wreaks havoc

 A house is engulfed by the storm surge brought about by powerful typhoon Haiyan that hit Legazpi city, Albay province. Photo: AP

SMH,

9 November, 2013

Manila: One of the strongest typhoons on record slammed into the central Philippines on Friday, killing at least four people, forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes and terrifying millions as ferocious winds tore roofs off buildings, knocked out power and communications in several provinces, and giant waves washed away flimsy homes.

But the nation appeared to avoid a major disaster because the rapidly moving typhoon blew away before wreaking more damage, officials said.

Huge Typhoon Haiyan raced across a string of islands from east to west — Samar, Leyte, Cebu and Panay— and lashed beach communities with ferocious winds.

Weather officials said Haiyan had sustained winds of 235 kph (147 mph) with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph) when it made landfall.

That makes it the world's strongest typhoon this year, said Aldczar Aurelio of the government's weather bureau.

Millions of people have been forced to move to high ground and storm shelters in 20 provinces as typhoon Haiyan lashed the islands of Leyte and Samar.

Due to cut-off communications, it was impossible to know the full extent of casualties and damage.

At least two people were electrocuted in storm-related accidents, one person was killed by a fallen tree and another was struck by lightning, official reports said.

Southern Leyte Gov. Roger Mercado said the typhoon triggered landslides that blocked roads, uprooted trees and ripped roofs off houses around his residence.

The dense clouds and heavy rains made the day seem almost as dark as night, he said.

"When you're faced with such a scenario, you can only pray, and pray and pray," Mercado told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that mayors in the province had not called in to report any major damage.

"I hope that means they were spared and not the other way around," he said. "My worst fear is there will be massive loss of lives and property."

Waves pounding the sea wall during the super storm. Photo: AFP

Super Typhoon Haiyan smashed into coastal communities on the central island of Samar, about 600 kilometres south-east of Manila, before dawn on Friday with maximum sustained winds of about 315 kilometres an hour.

''We've had reports of uprooted trees, very strong winds ... and houses made of light materials being damaged,'' Philippine Red Cross chief Gwendolyn Pang said on Friday afternoon as Haiyan swept across the archipelago's central and southern islands.

The death toll was expected to rise, with authorities unable to immediately contact the worst-affected areas and Haiyan only expected to leave the Philippines in the evening.

Haiyan is seen approaching the Philippines in this Japan Meteorological Agency handout image taken on Thursday. Photo: Reuters/Japan Meteorological Agency

Philippine president Benigno Aquino warned Filipinos they face calamity and urged people in the path of the giant storm to make all possible precautions.

The maximum category-five level typhoon cut power lines and phone lines and grounded air and sea transport. Officials said it was too early to know the extent of damage.

Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda, passed just north of Cebu, the country’s second largest city where 2.5 million people live.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical & Astronomical Services Administration said the storm was generating winds of 235km/h and gusts of 275km/h.

Earlier it was reported that the typhoon was generating winds of 313km/h and gusts of 378km/h, according to the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.

That would have made Haiyan the strongest storm since Super Typhoon Tip in 1979.

Haiyan was expected to hit Samar island, about 600km south-east of Manila, then cut across the central and southern Philippines before exiting into the South China Sea late on Saturday.

Authorities warned more than 12 million people were at risk from Typhoon Haiyan.

Survivors of a deadly earthquake fled their tent shelters as the typhoon's approach triggered evacuations, shut schools and cancelled flights.

In Cebu, where 12 died after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Visayas island on October 15, about 200 families have fled their homes, the local government information office said in a posting on Twitter.

Forced evacuation is ongoing in the northern part of the province of Bohol, where 209 people were killed by the earthquake, the Philippine Information Agency said on Twitter.

The typhoon, which was advancing with a giant, 600km front, was expected to hit areas still recovering from a deadly 2011 storm and a 7.1-magnitude quake last month.

A local official in Bohol said at least 5000 people were still living in tents while waiting for new homes.

The Philippines, battered by about 20 cyclones a year, was most affected in the world by natural disasters in 2012 with more than 2000 deaths, according to a report by the Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.

Monsoon rains swamped more than half of the Metro Manila region in August, killing at least 27 and shutting offices and financial markets for two days.

Tropical cyclone Usagi had winds as strong as 215 kilometres per hour and maximum gusts of 250 kilometres per hour when it hit the Batanes islands in northern Philippines in September.

The government has put in place relief supplies worth 195 million pesos ($4.8 million) in Samar and Leyte islands in the Visayas where Haiyan is forecast to land first tomorrow, Coloma said.

Typhoon Ketsana killed more than 400 people when it swamped Manila and parts of Luzon in 2009.

Storm Washi killed more than 1200 people, mostly in Mindanao, in December 2011.

At least 222 died in the October 15 earthquake in the Visayas.

Among the strongest typhoons to have crossed the Philippines is Storm Durian in 2006 with gusts as strong as 320km/h, according to the weather bureau

Typhoon Haiyan makes Sandy, Katrina look like weak cousins

LA Times,

26 January, 2013

What may be the fiercest typhoon in recorded history smashed into the Philippines early Friday morning, carrying winds that make Superstorm Sandy look like a weak relative. Even Hurricane Katrina, the modern measure of nature’s disastrous force on the United States, pales when compared to the punch and expected devastation from Typhoon Haiyan.

According to the latest report, Haiyan, also known as Yolanda in the Philippines, was packing winds in excess of 200 mph as it homed in on the island nation in the western Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said maximum sustained winds in the Category 5 storm were 195 mph with gusts to 235 mph.

When Haiyan made landfall in the city of Guiuan, the winds dropped to about 165 mph, a common occurrence for such storms when traveling over land. About 12 million people were in the path of the storm that has already forced hundreds of flights to be canceled and pushed a rising storm surge that imperiled all low-lying areas.

By comparison, Superstorm Sandy, which wobbled its way across the Caribbean, carried winds of about 115 mph and around 95 mph when it hit the coast of New Jersey a year ago. Katrina, the deadliest storm of the 2005 season, was as dangerous as a Category 5 storm, the top designation, with winds of 175 mph. But by the time it hit land, its strength had decreased to a Category 3, with winds less than 129 mph.

According to Philippine emergency officials speaking to various wire services, the death toll from the typhoon was just four, but they cautioned the weather event was still in its early stages.

Already, at least 748,000 people were evacuated and many are staying in about 664 evacuation centers, officials said. Electricity was cut off, homes and commercial buildings already flattened and communication with outlying areas was strained to non-existent.

Haiyan was believed to be the most powerful typhoon to hit the Philippines, where at least 20 such storms usually land each year. Last December, Typhoon Bopha caused more than 1,000 causalities due to flash floods and storms.

And the Philippines is just the beginning.

Top: Super Typhoon Haiyan moves toward the Philippines. (NOAA)

Bottom: Sandy hits the U.S. East Coast Oct. 28, 2012. (NOAA)

Haiyan is expected to pick up force as it crosses the waters of the South China Sea and continues to move to the west-northwest. Eventually, forecasters say, it will hit Vietnam and Laos by Sunday into Monday.

Sandy’s claim to fame was its size. The hurricane combined with two other weather fronts to create what meteorologists called a superstorm that damaged 24 states, including the eastern coast of the United States. At least 286 people died in seven countries, of whom about 160 were in the United States.

Though only slightly more than half of the deaths were in the United States, the overwhelming property destruction, $65 billion of the $68-billion total damage, was in the U.S. By definition, the value of property in a highly developed nation like the United States is always worth more than in the Third World, and Sandy tore through some of the most expensive property in the country--metropolitan New York and its suburbs.

Repair is also easier in the First World than in the Third as emergency aid can be transported along better roads and the cost of cleanup and repair is more easily borne by a wealthy society than a poor one.

Both Sandy and Katrina – and likely Haiyan as well – will prove the difference between the power of a storm and its impact. Though all carried high-velocity winds, the real damage comes later.

What made Katrina so deadly was the pressure it brought on the levee system, which failed in New Orleans. Flood waters rushed in and the scene of people trapped on rooftops and an entire city virtually underwater became the enduring images and brought comparisons with how storms affect the Third World.

More than 1,800 people were confirmed dead in Katrina. The cost of damage hit $108 billion and recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Sandy, too, carved its place into history with massive floods along low-lying areas of New York, Long Island and New Jersey. The U.S. government has already approved more than $60 billion for recovery efforts.