Super typhoon Haiyan

“Much of the city (of Leyte) is flattened after one of the most powerful storms on record.

“First reports said 100 bodies had been found there but the Red Cross later estimated the casualties at than 1000, with 200 more deaths in Samar province.

“An 350,000 people are reported to be displaced from their homes.”

Typhoon Haiyan: At least 138 dead in the Philippines, hundreds more predicted as super storm heads for Vietnam

Super Typhoon Haiyan has killed at least 138 people after battering the central Philippines, but the death toll may climb to 1,200 with the storm now bearing down on Vietnam

SMH,

10 November, 2013

Haiyan, with more powerful wind speeds than that of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina at 171 miles per hour (275 km/h), destroyed an airport, cut power and phones lines, and flattened crops. The official death toll is 138, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, while CNN cited the Philippine Red Cross for its estimate of 1,200 potential deaths.

The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami. 

As of 5 pm local time yesterday, Haiyan was 765 kilometers (475 miles) west-northwest of San Jose over the West Philippine Sea and forecast to move at 35 km/h toward Vietnam, which plans to evacuate about 883,015 people in 11 provinces and cities, according to a government website posting.

Devastation: Houses destroyed by the strong winds caused by typhoon Haiyan at Tacloban. Photo: AFP

About 100 bodies were found on the streets of Tacloban in Leyte province, where the year’s most powerful cyclone made landfall yesterday, said John Andrews, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

''The report of damage is significant,'' Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said in a televised briefing.

''The report on the casualties is more alarming on the Tacloban side.''

More than 4.2 million Filipinos, or about four percent of the population, were affected by Haiyan, mostly in central provinces such as Visayas, before the storm left the country, the government said.

The Philippines was the nation most affected by natural disasters in 2012, with more than 2,000 deaths, according to the Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. A 7.2-magnitude earthquake left 222 dead in Visayas on October 15.

President Benigno Aquino said the government was prepared to use 23 billion pesos ($533 million) from various agencies and his discretionary fund for relief and rebuilding of disaster- ravaged towns and provinces.

'Reconstruction will be funded,'' Mr Aquino told a televised briefing in Manila. The government doesn’t yet have the full extent of the devastation, he said.

Tacloban’s airport was destroyed and only the runway remains. ''Very many'' bodies were scattered on the streets of Tacloban, homes made of wood were wiped out and many roads have been rendered impassable by debris, Lieutenant Jim Alagao, a military spokesman, said by phone.

''It was like standing behind a jet engine,'' Manuel Roxas, the Interior and Local Government secretary, told DZMM radio. ''The winds were that strong, hurled roofs, wood into the air.''

Police and army troops will be flown into Tacloban from Manila to maintain order amid reports of looting and to help clear roads, Roxas said from Cebu province in the central Philippines, where the government set up a command center.

Storm surges may have caused deaths, Gwen Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, said in a phone interview yesterday, adding she received reports that winds were so strong that they could knock down steel structures.

More than 340,000 people in 36 provinces have been displaced by Haiyan, including those being served in evacuation centres, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. More than 3,400 houses were damaged, while four airports remain shut.

As of 1.30 pm yesterday, Haiyan had left the Philippines and all storm alerts were removed, state weather forecaster Gladys Saludes said in a phone interview.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung yesterday ordered local officials to closely monitor Haiyan’s movement and called for boats to find shelter as the storm approaches. He also ordered authorities to reinforce houses, facilities, and move citizens away from dangerous areas.

Haiyan’s centre is forecast to be in the sea areas of Quang Ngai-Quang Tri provinces by 10 am today, with likely wind speeds of 134 to 166 kilometers an hour, according to the country’s National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting.

The middle part of central Vietnam and north Central Highlands will experience heavy rain, while the typhoon is forecast to move along the coast and approach land this morning, local time. After landfall, the storm is expected to weaken into a depression and result in widespread rain over north Vietnam, and may cause flooding and landslides, the government said in an advisory.

Quang Nam province planned to evacuate more than 216,000 people by 5 pm yesterday, according to a statement posted on the government’s website. Danang City planned to remove 73,000 people by 7 pm, while Thua Thien-Hue was expected to evacuate 113,000.

Philippines recovery efforts

Two C-130 cargo planes have arrived in Tacloban carrying body bags along with goods and medical supplies. The Philippine National Police sent a contingent of 150 search-and-rescue troops, crime laboratory examiners and communication and electronic service technicians to help with recovery efforts, the PNP said in a statement yesterday.

Globe Telecom Inc, the country’s second-largest telecommunications company, said about 26 percent of its network in the central island group of Visayas had been ''adversely affected'' by the typhoon.

Gaisano Mall in Tacloban was looted, according to local radio DZMM.

''The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami,'' Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the United Nations Disaster Assessment Coordination Team, said in a statement.

'

'This is destruction on a massive scale. There are cars thrown like tumble weed and the streets are strewn with debris.''

High winds have swept about half of the Philippines’ sugar cane-growing areas and a third of its rice-producing land, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland.

''Winds were so intense in this system that a lot of the crop is just going to be flattened,'' said David Streit, an agricultural meteorologist with CWG.

As much as 35 percent of the rice and sugar in those areas may be damaged.

Typhoon Haiyan’s total economic impact may reach $14 billion, about $2 billion of which will be insured, according to a report by Jonathan Adams, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Industries.

Mr Aquino said Haiyan may cause more damage than Storm Bopha, which killed 1,067 and left 834 missing when that cyclone triggered landslides in Mindanao in 2012. Typhoon Ketsana killed more than 400 when it swamped the country’s capital Manila and parts of Luzon in 2009. Storm Washi killed more than 1,200 people in December 2011.

Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, ravaged its Gulf Coast in 2005, flooding most of New Orleans and leading to more than 1,800 deaths.

Southern Leyte Governor Roger Mercado said the dense clouds and heavy rain made the day seem almost as dark as night.

''When you're faced with such a scenario, you can only pray, and pray, and pray,'' Mr Mercado said.

The death toll is going to much greater than this - there are reports that over 1000 have died.

From the Telegraph -