The Philippines has had its share of weather-borne excitement already this year, as a whopping 10 typhoons have made their way to its shores, and the 10th has qualified for the special and menacing category of “super typhoon.”
In 1998, 4,000 people died in the Yangtze floods in China. Now the country is bracing for its worst flooding since then as Typhoon Conson, which has already killed 38 people in the Philippines, closes in on China’s southern coast.
Typhoon Morakot has claimed more than 500 lives in Taiwan since the storm hit the island’s southern region a week ago. Thousands more may still be trapped, according to local reports, making Morakot the worst natural disaster to strike the island in half a century.