The Atlantic has been blessedly quiet so far this hurricane season. Not so the Pacific. On Monday, the NASA Earth Observatory reported
three different typhoons spinning over the Western Pacific simultaneously. One of those -- Typhone Saomai -- has since developed into a super-typhoon (equivalent to a strong Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane), reportedly the strongest cyclone to threaten China in 50 years. 1.3 million people were evacuated in advance of the storm, which
made landfall today. Last month alone,
nearly 1,000 lives were lost to natural disasters in China -- mostly due to typhoons. Amid lashing rains and flooding, officials are concerned about the integrity country's 85,000 dams, a
third of which are considered unsafe. Some in Asia were reportedly yearning for a typhoon to strike. Korea has been suffering an intense heat wave and, as the newspaper
Chosun Ilbo reports:
Typhoon Saomai -- this year's eighth - held a promise of cooling off the Korean Peninsula, but has disappointingly veered off toward southern China. The Korea Meteorological Administration predicted that only a typhoon will be able to bring down the insufferable temperatures.
3 Comments:
Updated image: Saomai comes ashore.
I heard as many as 10,000 may have died in a typhoon that hit N. Korea. I doubt the S. Koreans would have been psyched about that.
I read about N. Korea. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. As usual with such high death tolls, it has been partly attributed to human impact on the environment; namely, many denuded hillsides, deforested for fuel and sometimes turned to agriculture, give way and bury settlement below. When more than 10,000 died in Hurricane Mitch in 2000 it was the same story. News from N. Korea has been scant however, given the nature of the country, with death toll figures giving a range from the official and absurdly low figures -- a couple hundred or so -- to the figure you cite. Whatever the case, it must be horrific as people are inevitably homeless and now have to worry about disease. And on top of it all, the heat...
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