Typhoon lashes China after more than a million people evacuated

Sue-Lin Wong in Reuters: One of the most powerful typhoons to strike eastern China in decades disrupted air, rail and sea transport on Saturday after forcing the evacuation of more than a million people from the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, state media reported.

Typhoon Chan-Hom was packing winds of 162 kph (101 mph) as it hit the city of Zhoushan, slowing from an earlier speed of 173 kph (108 mph). It could be the most powerful typhoon to hit Zhejiang in July since the Communist Party took power in 1949, the National Meteorological Center said.

In Shanghai, the commercial capital, Pudong International Airport canceled 500 flights while Hongqiao Airport canceled 250 because of the typhoon, the official People's Daily newspaper said.

The typhoon brought heavy rain to Shanghai as well as the provinces of Anhui and Fujian, besides Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the weather service said....

Chan-Hom on July 10, 2015, via Himawari-8 AHI images provided by the Japan Meteorological Agency and composited by Meow, a work of  University of Wisconsin–Madison SSEC/CIMSS, Wikimedia Commons

Number of Malaysians displaced by worst-ever floods reaches 160,000

Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah in Reuters: The number of people evacuated due to Malaysia's worst-ever floods jumped to more than 160,000 on Saturday, as Prime Minister Najib Razak reached the worst-hit state after cutting short a vacation in the U.S.

Najib arrived in Kelantan, which has the biggest problems among eight affected states, following his return from Hawaii on Friday after public criticism he had been absent as flooding worsened.

On Saturday, Najib announced an additional 500 million ringgit ($143.31 million) will be spent to aid victims after the flood subsides, following an initial government allocation of 50 million ringgit two days ago. The number of people evacuated topped 160,000 at 0700GMT Saturday, according to the New Straits Times newspaper, a sharp increase from 100,000 a day before.

The prime minister attended briefings with the National Security Council, the National Disaster Management and Relief Committee, state government and local emergency responders, a statement on Friday said.

Taken during the 2007 Johor flood in Kota Tinggi, Malaysia, shot by Mr Tan, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Super typhoon intensifies as it threatens Philippines

Terra Daily via AFP: A super typhoon gained strength on Thursday as it tracked towards the Philippines, threatening more devastation for mostly poor communities where thousands of people have died in an annual tirade of mega-storms.

Weather forecasters warned Hagupit, already generating wind gusts of 240 kilometres (149 miles) an hour, would continue to intensify as it swept in from the Pacific Ocean, and likely hit eastern islands on Saturday.

"Let's prepare for everything," President Benigno Aquino told a nationally televised meeting of disaster agency chiefs, after hearing warnings of giant storm surges and house-destroying winds.

Authorities said Hagupit would likely hit or pass near areas yet to recover from Super Typhoon Haiyan, the most powerful storm ever recorded on land that killed or left missing more than 7,350 people in November last year.

In Tacloban, one of the cities worst-hit by Haiyan, some residents began evacuating from vulnerable coastal areas well ahead of Hagupit's expected arrival, while others emptied supermarket shelves of essential supplies....

NASA image of Hagupit, taken December 4, 2014

A closer look at ‘climate refugees’

Max Martin in SciDev.net: On the sidelines of last month’s international conference on small island developing states (SIDS) in Samoa, Kiribati’s president, Anote Tong, said: “I have never encouraged the status of our people being refugees.”

It was a strong denial of the term ‘climate refugee’, which appears in media stories
galore. Sadly, such stories often portray the risk of displacement for inhabitants of Pacific island states such as Kiribati and Samoa in a way that is reminiscent of cartoons of a shipwrecked man on a desert island. Of course, we should not dismiss the threat of sea-level rise. Numerous low-lying islands, deltas and coastlines could lose land not only as a direct impact of it, but also due to increased erosion and wave impacts.

Yet in reality, it is not solely the prospect of the edges of their homelands sinking that drives people from islands, as new research shows. A study led by Robert Stojanov of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic analysed key environmental factors considered to influence population movement in Tuvalu. They found that, though this Pacific island state is threatened by sea-level rise, many other factors including water insecurity, some of which interact with climate change, drive large population movements.

The authors examined existing types of environment-related migration and displacement — namely migration for economic reasons and displacement due to development projects, as well as events such as rising sea level and cyclones.

Their study shows that Tuvaluans who can foresee climate and environment-related impacts get enough time to plan their movements. But other research shows that sometimes people are forced to move without such plans because they experience events such as unusually high tides — known locally as ‘king tides’ — that increasingly inundate parts of the islands....

Funafuti Atoll in Tuvalu, shot by Stefan Lins, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

India's Gujarat state braces for Cyclone Nilofar

BBC: Authorities in India have begun evacuating tens of thousands of people as a powerful cyclone heads for the western coast. Cyclone Nilofar, categorised as "severe" by weather forecasters, is expected to hit Gujarat state on Saturday morning.

India's Meteorological Department has predicted the storm will bring winds of up to 130km/h (80 mph). Rescue and relief teams have been deployed and the army is on stand-by.

A super-cyclone in 1999 killed more than 10,000 people in eastern Orissa state. Earlier this month, Cyclone Hudhud pounded India's eastern coast, killing more than 40 people, causing extensive damage and prompting the evacuation of some 350,000 people.

Cyclone Nilofar is also expected to pass around 250km (155 miles) from Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, local weather officials said.

Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority has told officials to prepare to evacuate villages along the coast and close beachside restaurants. Authorities in Gujarat's coastal Kutch district, where the cyclone is expected to make landfall, have begun evacuating more than 30,000 people from the area, senior local official MS Patel told the AFP news agency...

NASA image of Cyclone Nilofar in the Arabian Sea, October 29, 2014

Hundreds flee 2 California wildfires; homes burn

Seattle PI via AP: Two raging wildfires in California forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes, including one near a lakeside resort town that burned nearly two dozen structures, many of them homes.

The blaze, sparked Sunday afternoon near a foothill community south of the entrance to Yosemite National Park in central California, prompted authorities to evacuate about 1,000 residents out of about 400 homes, Madera County Sheriff's spokeswoman Erica Stuart said.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said flames damaged or destroyed 21 structures. The Fresno Bee reports one neighborhood was hit especially hard, with several homes turned to ash and smoldering embers. "This is gut-wrenching," CalFire Battalion Chief Chris Christopherson told the newspaper. "It makes you sick."

...The fire started off a road outside of Oakhurst, near Yosemite National Park, and made a run to Bass Lake. Stoked by winds, it quickly charred at least 320 acres, CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said. The lakeside area is a popular destination throughout the year. There were no reports of the blaze, which is 20 percent contained, affecting the park.

The destructive fire led Gov. Jerry Brown to secure a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover 75 percent of the costof fighting the fire, state officials said.

Further north, a wildfire about 60 miles east of Sacramento forced the evacuation of 133 homes. El Dorado County sheriff's officials said residents of an additional 406 homes were being told to prepare to flee. Berlant said the blaze started in a remote area Saturday but exploded on Sunday when it reached a canyon full of thick, dry brush. It has blackened 4.7 square miles and was 10 percent contained.

Meanwhile in Southern California, evacuation orders for 200 homes in Orange County's Silverado Canyon were lifted late Sunday as firefighters contained 50 percent of a wildfire....

An Alora Manley photo of a 2007 wildfire in California, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Jammu and Kashmir floods: Massive rescue operation under way, Srinagar submerged

Times of India: Massive rescue operations were under way on Monday to evacuate tens of thousands of people stranded in floods in Jammu & Kashmir as the situation remained grim with most parts of Srinagar city still under water and bad communication lines and high water levels posing a big challenge.

As authorities struggled to deal with the calamity, a landslide was reported from Pachori village in Udhampur district and mitigation forces have reached the area to rescue the few people trapped there.

A total of 25 boats have been launched in flooded areas of Srinagar city to ferry people out even as over 5,100 people have been rescued from the state which is reeling under heavy floods.

Flood fury has so far claimed the lives of about 150 people and damaged many buildings, including hospitals, and snapped road and communication links, cutting off many areas. The Army cantonment, civil secretariat and the high court in Srinagar have also been inundated.

"We are facing a big problem of communication as all links are down. We are not able to communicate with our teams sent on ground in this flood-ravaged areas. Also, as water level is high in many places our personnel are not able to reach the stranded," National Disaster Response Force chief O P Singh told reporters in Delhi....

UN conference set to bypass climate change refugees

Thalif Deen in IPS: An international conference on small island developing states (SIDS), scheduled to take place in Samoa next week, will bypass a politically sensitive issue: a proposal to create a new category of “environmental refugees” fleeing tiny island nations threatened by rising seas. “It’s not on the final declaration called the outcome document,” a SIDS diplomat told IPS.

The rich countries that neighbour small island states are not in favour of a flood of refugees inundating them, he added. Such a proposal also involves an amendment to the 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees, making it even more divisive.

The outcome document, already agreed upon at a U.N. Preparatory Committee meeting last month, will be adopted at the Sep. 1-4 meeting in the Samoan capital of Apia.

Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy coordinator at Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), told IPS, “We believe that climate refugees have a legitimate claim for asylum and should be recognised under the U.N. refugee convention and offered international protection.”

Unfortunately, she said, the very developed nations responsible for the vast majority of the climate-changing gases present in the atmosphere today are those refusing to extend the refugee convention to include climate refugees. “Worse still, they are trying to weaken existing international protection for refugees,” Shaw added....

A NASA image of Aneityum, Vanuatu

East India flood threat eases, 30,000 villagers told to go home

Jatindra Dash at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: About 30,000 evacuated villagers in eastern India began returning home on Tuesday after the threat of floods due to a  landslide in neighbouring Nepal eased, but 100,000 remained in relief camps, government officials said.

The landslide, triggered by heavy rains in Nepal's Sindhupalchowk district on Saturday,  killed at least 33 people and created a mud dam blocking the Sunkoshi river, which flows into India as the Kosi river. Indian authorities, fearing a torrent of water as the Nepalese army tried to clear the landslide, evacuated more than 130,000 villagers in Bihar state over the weekend.

A senior disaster management official said the careful clearing of the landslide across the border had lessened the risk of flash floods and 30,000 evacuees were told to return home. "Some of the districts … in the downstream area such as Darbhanga, Madhubani, Khagaria and Bhagalpur, they may not face the problems anticipated earlier," said Vyasji, principal secretary of Bihar disaster management department.

"We have stopped our evacuation process in these four districts. People who are at the relief camps have been told to go back to their villages," he told Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Patna, Bihar's main city....

The Sunkoshi River in a dryer time, shot by Rajesh2044, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Typhoon in Philippines raises concerns over evacuation centers

Philippine Star via Xinhua: The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday that its teams were conducting assessments of the areas in the Philippines affected by Typhoon Rammasun (known locally as Glenda).

IOM said in a statement that a Category 3 storm earlier this week had prompted the evacuation of over 500,000 people and claimed at least 40 lives.

Initial findings from the worst affected province, Albay in Bicol, found that 42,000 houses are heavily damaged or destroyed, according to IOM, who declared it was ready to support the Philippine authorities in the construction of stronger houses once needs were confirmed.

Rammasun was the first typhoon to hit the country since the devastating super typhoon Haiyan last November.

Despite the success of the pre-emptive measures, the lack of safe evacuation centers remained a key concern, especially in the Haiyan affected region, said IOM....

A tree down in Quezon City, thanks to Glenda/Ramassun, shot by krichard2011, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

20 dead, 370,000 evacuated as typhoon passes Philippines

Solar News (Philippines): Typhoon Glenda (international name: Ramassun) left 20 people dead and caused the evacuation of more than 370,000 by the time it hit Metro Manila early on Wednesday, July 16. By early evening, it was last located over the West Philippine Sea moving towards Bajo de Masinloc, Zambales according to a latest bulletin of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).

Glenda was last spotted 160 km west of Zambales packing winds of 140 kph and gustiness of up to 170 kph. It was moving west northwest at 24 kph. Public storm signals have now been lowered.

Metro Manila is now under Storm Signal No. 1, along with Laguna, Batangas, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bataan, Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite, Zambales, Pangasinan, Lubang Island, and the northern part of Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, PAGASA forecaster Rene Paciente said the weather is expected to improve late in the evening. Glenda is expected to leave Philippine territory by tomorrow afternoon (July 17).

Earlier, the typhoon shut down Manila, the capital, cutting power and prompting the evacuation of almost more than 370,000 people, rescue officials said. The eye of Glenda, the strongest storm to hit the country this year, passed south of Manila after cutting a path across the main island of Luzon, toppling trees and power lines and causing electrocutions and widespread blackouts....

A tropical storm over Manila in 2008 (something much less powerful than Ramassun/Glenda), shot by CE Photo Uwe Aranas, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Typhoon shuts down Philippine capital, triggers mass evacuations

Reuters: Philippine authorities evacuated almost 150,000 people from their homes and shuttered financial markets, government offices, businesses and schools on Wednesday as typhoon Rammasun gathered strength and hit the capital, Manila.

The typhoon, the strongest to hit the country this year, has already torn through eastern islands, toppling trees and power lines and causing blackouts. On Wednesday, it brought storm surges to the Manila Bay area and prompted disaster officials to evacuate slum-dwellers on the capital's outskirts.

"The wind is very strong, stronger than the rains. It's something that I've never experienced in the past," Mark Leviste, vice governor of Batangas province south of the capital, said in a radio interview.

Parts of the Philippines are still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, one of the biggest cyclones known to have made landfall anywhere. It killed more than 6,100 people last November in the central provinces, many in tsunami-like sea surges, and left millions homeless.

Typhoon Rammasun was gusting up to 185 kph (115 mph) on Wednesday with sustained winds of 150 kph (93 mph) near its center....

Typhoon Rammasun on July 15, 2014, in a NASA image

Kyushu evacuates 90,000 as typhoon approaches

Jacob Adelman in Bloomberg News: Typhoon Neoguri headed toward Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu, prompting the evacuation of almost 90,000 people amid the threat of floods and landslides.

Neoguri was west of Kyushu with top winds reaching 148 kilometers (92 miles) per hour, down from yesterday’s 252 kph, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The storm, which was heading east as of 7:50 pm local time, left 20 injured in Okinawa yesterday, where it grounded flights and prompted evacuations.

Parts of Kyushu will probably be hit by tomorrow with violent winds, swollen rivers and waves up to 10 meters high, the weather agency reported on its website. While rain brought by the storm will generally amount to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) to 3 inches, some areas may get as much as 5 inches, leading to “localized flooding in higher terrain,” says Commodity Weather Group LLC.

“The storm is weakening just slightly faster and should be down to tropical storm force winds, 55 knots (102 kph), at landfall in southwestern Japan in about 12 hours,” David Streit, a forecaster at CWG in Bethesda, Maryland, said in an e-mail received at 6:23 p.m. Tokyo time. “Winds will be down to 35 knots when it passes Tokyo about 24 hours later.”

Officials in the Kyushu city of Amakusa urged 87,327 residents today to take shelter in gyms and other buildings being used as evacuation centers, as the storm threatened homes, public broadcaster NHK reported on its website....

The eyewall of Neoguri seen July 7, 2014, from the International Space Station

Hundreds evacuated as heavy floods sweep across Siberia

RT: Hundreds of people have been evacuated and tens of thousands left without power after heavy floods struck southern Siberia. A state of emergency has been introduced in three regions. Those areas are the Altai region, Khakassia Republic, and Altai Republic, said Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov, who added that a “high alert” has been issued for two other regions - Tuva Republic and Buryatia Republic.

Meanwhile, Puchkov also noted that other regions are at risk from the flooding - such as Sakha (Yakutia) Republic and the Amur region – due to the fact that rivers in southern Siberia have responded quickly to the heavy rains.

In the Altai Republic alone, the flooding has already destroyed 230 kilometers of roads and 1.5 kilometers of a federal highway which links Russia with Mongolia. Fifteen bridges were washed away. Heavy floods swallowed up nearly 1,000 houses in Altai Republic, where up to 3,500 people - including 927 children - live. Hundreds are now homeless and have been forced to seek shelter in temporary accommodation centers. Emergency services have confirmed that one person has died and three are missing. Several areas in the republic have been left without electricity after heavy rain brought down 48 utility poles.

On Saturday, the ministry launched a massive rescue operation in the affected regions, evacuating hundreds of people. However, many domestic animals didn’t survive, according to local officials. A local emergencies ministry estimates that nearly 4,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed by water in the affected regions. Roughly 8,000 people have been forced to evacuate....

A map of central Siberia, public domain

Will fleeing home be the last resort as the climate changes?

Jaspreet Kindra in IRIN: ...Like many other Micronesian states, Palau is extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges - several islands are less than a metre above sea level. In other low-lying countries like Bangladesh, people have become used to the idea of moving, but "planned relocation" evokes strong feelings in this part of the Pacific.

Palau gained independence from the United States in 1994 and signed the Compact of Free Association, which will run until 2044. Under this agreement, the US provides substantial financial assistance to Palau, whose nationals can also travel to the US with relative ease and work there. Almost everyone has a family member in the US, but no one talks about moving there permanently.

...People in neighbouring islands like Kiribati and Tuvalu are being forced to move away from the constantly encroaching sea. Planning for possible dual citizenship, shopping for land, and providing new skills so their people can get jobs in another country are among the policy decisions that confront low-lying countries and islands.

"Some countries expressed reservations about the idea of having planned relocation ... since [they]...have hardly contributed to dangerous climate change, but would be asked to concede significant things like administration of viable populations and habitable territory - both key parts of sovereignty" But many Pacific islanders feel like Josephs. Tony de Brum, the
Minister in Assistance to the President of the Marshall Islands, told IRIN that the idea of planned relocation is not even being considered. “If we do that, it will be an admittance of failure in our part,” on two counts - adaptation and global mitigation efforts...

Aerial view of limestone islands of Palau, shot by NOAA

Super typhoon victims flee again as rains flood southern Philippines

Erik de Castro in Reuters: Emergency workers evacuated thousands of people across the southern Philippines on Tuesday, including many already made homeless by a typhoon in November, after three days of rain flooded towns and farmland.

Hundreds of survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall, were forced to flee by tropical depression "Agaton" after emergency shelters were damaged or destroyed on the eastern central island of Samar. Tents collapsed under the weight of the rain and emergency plastic sheets have been torn away, humanitarian agency Oxfam said.

An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year with Haiyan slamming into central islands on November 8, killing more than 6,100 and wiping out entire coastal communities in Leyte and Samar.

More than 200,000 people have been taken to shelters over the last three days as flood waters rose, but hundreds were still marooned on the roofs of their houses on Tuesday, said Eduardo del Rosario, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Del Rosario said 42 people had been killed, 65 had been injured and damage to property and farms had reached 367 million pesos ($8.13 million). "Our troops are trying to reach them and bring them to safer ground," del Rosario said....

Cyclone evacuation in Odisha, India, to become a global example

A press release from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: The effective evacuation of almost 1 million people in Odisha ahead of Cyclone Phailin will be highlighted as a global example in the lead-up to the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, in 2015.

The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Ms Margareta Wahlström, lauded Odisha for its ‘landmark success’ actions in limiting the number of deaths directly caused by the cyclone to 21.  “We have started work on documenting the Odisha success story and will highlight it as an example at the World Conference. It is easy to talk about problems and failures. We have to bring into people’s minds what works,” Ms Wahlström said.

The Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, said the plaudits would spur his State to continue efforts to strengthen its disaster risk management and that they would not become complacent.  “The credit for the success of Phailin management goes to the brave people of Odisha who rose to the occasion in spite of all the odds and faced the calamity with inspiring courage,” said Chief Minister Patnaik, whose state fixed a ‘zero casualty’ target during the cyclone.

“I would also like to thank the meteorological department for its accurate prediction of the storm that played a major role in our preparedness. We want to prepare a long-term disaster risk reduction plan and climate change action plan for our state and we are now poised to implement it in the coming years.”

Ms Wahlström presented a citation to Chief Minister Patnaik to recognise the State Government’s achievement in being so well prepared ahead of the cyclone.  “The State Government’s fast response was remarkable. It was a fantastic achievement; they did excellent work. Odisha’s handling of the very severe cyclone will be a landmark success story in disaster management,” she said....

NASA image of Cyclone Phailin, October 11, 2013

India's east coast braces as severe cyclone advances

Jatindra Dash in Reuters via the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Indian authorities evacuated thousands of villagers living in low-lying areas, suspended fishing operations and put disaster response teams on standby on Wednesday as a severe cyclone hurtled towards its eastern coast.

Cyclone Lehar - the third powerful storm to hit Andhra Pradesh in seven weeks - is moving in from the Bay of Bengal and forecast to make landfall near the city of Machilipatnam on Thursday afternoon with wind speeds of up to 170 kmph (105 mph).

India's weather office predicts Lehar will also bring storm surges and heavy rains and will damage mud-and-thatch homes, disrupt power and communication networks and inundate farmland along the state's northern coast.

An alert has been issued in the districts of East and West Godavari, Guntur and Krishna, said local officials, warning people to remain indoors. "Some 15,000 people have been evacuated from East Godavari," said C. Parthasarathy, commissioner of state disaster management department.

He said weather conditions had been normal in the area during the day and many coastal inhabitants were reluctant to move to cyclone shelters on higher ground, but he expected more people to be evacuated by the evening....

Cyclone Lehar on November 25, 2013, via NASA

Evacuation saves whole island from Typhoon Haiyan

A press release from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: The prompt evacuation of 1,000 people from a tiny island that had all 500 houses destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan saved the entire population according to a local leader who has been a long-time champion for disaster risk reduction.

The former Mayor of San Francisco, Cebu Province, Alfredo Arquillano, said years of work to strengthen community preparedness and reduce disaster risk prevented a catastrophe for the residents of Tulang Diyot. San Francisco is officially recognized as a role model by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) in a highly hazard-prone part of the world.

“The day before, when it was clear how bad the typhoon would be, we decided to evacuate all 1,000 people. Because we’ve done so much work on disaster risk everyone fully understood the need to move to safety,” Mr. Arquillano said. He is still referred to locally as Mayor Al.

“My goodness, it was a good decision; it’s fair to say it saved everyone’s life. There is not one house left standing on the island, everything was wiped out.  It just shows that preparedness pays. We have been working for years on early warnings, evacuations. The awareness level of the community was so high that it went well. We have worked hard to localize the international agreement on disaster risk reduction, the Hyogo Framework for Acton.”

Tulang Diyot is about 1.5km long and 500 metres across at its widest and lies about 1km off San Francisco island, part of the Camotes Islands which are sandwiched between the larger neighbouring islands of Leyte to the east and Cebu to the west...

Shot of Tuland Diyot from the UNISDR website

Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of strongest storms ever, heads for central Philippines

Jethro Mullen at CNN: Thousands of people in vulnerable areas of the Philippines are being relocated as the strongest storm on the planet so far this year spins toward the country. With sustained winds of 305 kph (190 mph) and gusts as strong as 370 kph (230 mph), Super Typhoon Haiyan was churning across the Western Pacific toward the central Philippines as one of the most intense tropical cyclones ever recorded.

Its wind strength makes it equivalent to an exceptionally strong Category 5 hurricane. The storm, known as Yolanda in the Philippines, is expected to still be a super typhoon, with winds in excess of 240 kph (149 mph), when it makes landfall Friday morning in the region of Eastern Visayas.

The storm is so large in diameter that clouds from it are affecting two-thirds of the country. Authorities in the region had moved more than 3,800 people to evacuation centers by late Thursday, Maj. Reynaldo Balido of the Philippine Office of Civil Defense said.

Most of those relocated live in Tacloban City, which sits on the coast of the island of Leyte and has a population of more than 200,000....

Typhoon Haiyan (or Yolanda) on November 6, 2013, via NOAA