Wednesday 13 November 2013

Storms and Floods

Tropical Storms

No current tropical storms.

Super Typhoon Haiyan is gone, but not before adding China to its list of ravaged nations in Asia. Haiyan made landfall on the northern Vietnam coast near the Chinese border as a Category 1 storm with 75 mph winds on Sunday, and spread torrential rains into southern China of up to 38 centimetres (15 inches) over some parts of Guangxi province, which caused up to $700 million in damage to agricultural, forestry, poultry and fishing industries there. Seven people were killed in China on hard-hit Hainan Island, with three others missing. In Vietnam, at least 13 people died and 81 were injured from the storm. In Taiwan, huge 26-foot waves from Haiyan swept 16 people out to sea on Sunday, killing 8 of them.

Before and After Images: Several hours before Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines on Nov. 7, DigitalGlobe activated FirstLook, an online service that provides satellite imagery of large scale disasters. Their satellites collected more than 7,300 square miles of imagery in the areas hardest hit by the typhoon.

The death toll from Friday's typhoon may be lower than first thought. The number of 10,000 killed is said to be "too high" and the figure is more likely up to 2,500. But more than 11 million people are believed to have been affected and some 673,000 displaced.

The quest for clean water has become a life-or-death ordeal in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan's massive storm surge and high winds devastated the country and quick action needs to be taken to prevent further disease and dehydration. International health officials rushed Tuesday to help the estimated 9.6 million people affected by the record storm that struck the region Saturday, wrecking the already-fragile water system and raising the risk of water-borne diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever.

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