Breaking News: Major Typhoon Heading for MNL

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.


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Just consider the Philippines after this event to be in serious dires straights. Yes, they will survive the majority, but its something like falling down. The pain is felt not then and there but after the next few days. They will rejoice upon being alive, but when they come out and look around, BAM! It's not like they don't experience typhoons ever, they get more typhoons per year than you can count on two hands. It's just that whenever you have 300 MPH winds and gusting above that, its impossible to assume there will be heavy damage. More like A DISASTER MULTIPLIED like you never seen before. Consider the average person in Philippines lives in shacks. Yes, SHACKS. No way those shacks can sustain that kind of punishment. I suspect you will see the U.S. Army, some major charity drives, much like the TSUNAMI that hit the Indian Ocean a few years back all over the Philippines after this one. Just plain bad news for anything in its path. This is the biggest recorded wind speeds in a Typhoon ever, and all born and bred in TYPHOON ALLEY. The Devil himself made it to the Philippines this November.

I saw the damage on Guam after PAKA hit in 1997 or 98. It looked like a nuke hit the joint. All the trees had their leaves gone, as though they dropped their leaves for winter, which in Guam, there is no WINTER. Only thing dropping leaves there are heavy winds packing more than a category 2 or 3 typhoon. This YOLANDA typhoon in Philippines will go beyond a category 5. It broke the meter on this one. YOLANDA is the name called by the Philippines. NOAA is calling it HAIYAN.

UPDATE: Weather officials said Haiyan had sustained winds of 235 kph (147 mph) with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph) when it made landfall. That makes it the world’s strongest typhoon this year, said Aldczar Aurelio of the government’s weather bureau.
Due to cut-off communications, it was impossible to know the full extent of casualties and damage. At least two people were electrocuted in storm-related accidents, one person was killed by a fallen tree and another was struck by lightning, official reports said.
Southern Leyte Gov. Roger Mercado said the typhoon triggered landslides that blocked roads, uprooted trees and ripped roofs off houses around his residence. The dense clouds and heavy rains made the day seem almost as dark as night, he said. President Benigno Aquino III assured the public of war-like preparations, with three C-130 air force cargo planes and 32 military helicopters and planes on standby, along with 20 navy ships. If the U.S. figures are correct, they would be the highest ever for a tropical cyclone when it made landfall anywhere on Earth, beating out Hurricane Camille, which had wind speeds of 305 kph (190 mph) at landfall in the southeast United States 1969, said Jeff Masters, a former hurricane meteorologist who is meteorology director at the private company Weather Underground.
There have been three instances of storms with higher winds, but all were at sea when the winds were measured and they were more than 50 years ago when measurement accuracy was an issue, Masters said. He said the record was Super Typhoon Nancy in 1961. “195 mph winds, there aren’t too many buildings constructed that can withstand that kind of wind,” Masters told The Associated Press.

Yup, it looks pretty much like I expected. Bad bad news for sure. 1200 deaths and counting. Just hit one island after another. Leyte, Samar, Negros, Bihol, Boracay, Palwan and more. 100 bodies floating in Tacloban City on the streets. Luckily, the Manlia area, got spared. But bad weather is always news year after year including Manila, that suffers alot of typhoons, and heavy flooding rains. They Typhoons claim their dues in souls.