Typhoon Karmaegi left around 200 people dead this week as it blazed a path of destruction into the Philippines after damaging homes and uprooting trees in central Vietnam.
Karmaegi, one of the strongest typhoons ever to hit Vietnam, brought heavy rain and destructive winds to areas already saturated with flooding from record rainfall.
The typhoon hit the central Philippines on Tuesday, leaving behind a trail of death and devastation, reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble and displacing tens of thousands of people. Local authorities said at least 188 people were killed, most of them in the tourist province of Cebu.
Karmaegi gathered strength toward the coast of Vietnam on Thursday, recording maximum sustained winds of 195 mph, according to records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Scientists have long warned that the human-induced climate crisis (for which developed countries have a greater historical responsibility) will only exacerbate the scale and intensity of regional storms that disproportionately affect populations in the Global South.
In the Philippines, survivors began the arduous task of recovering belongings and digging through the thick mud and rubble of destroyed homes as floodwaters receded to reveal widespread devastation.
Meanwhile, another typhoon, Fanwong, known locally as Uwang, is speeding towards the northern Philippine islands, bringing with it new threats of deadly storm surge, flooding and damage.
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Residents were beginning to assess the damage caused by the storm on Friday, with reports of destroyed homes, blown off roofs, downed trees and more than 1 million people without power, state media said.
At least five people were killed and seven injured, state media Vietnam News reported, citing local authorities. One person was killed when a house collapsed during a storm in central Vietnam, and three people are missing after being washed out to sea on Ly Son Island in Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province, state media said.
Heavy rains caused by Karmaegi also flooded coastal areas in Dak Lak province, recording 354 millimeters (1 foot) of rain in about six hours, Vietnam News reported.
More than 500,000 people were evacuated, many by boat, according to the Associated Press.
The typhoon struck as the country struggles to recover from last week’s devastating floods, which submerged historic sites including the ancient capital of Hoi An and the former imperial capital of Hue.
The floods killed more than a dozen people and submerged more than 116,000 homes and more than 5,000 hectares of crops, Reuters reported, citing government disaster officials.
Karmaegi weakened into a tropical cyclone on Friday as it moved further inland from central Vietnam towards northern Cambodia and Laos, according to Vietnam’s National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center. Damaging winds remain a threat, and continued heavy rain could cause further flash floods and landslides across central Vietnam over the weekend.
The scale of the disaster in Cebu province, the Philippines’ worst-hit province, and surrounding areas surprised residents and local officials.
Drone footage showed Typhoon Karmaegi, locally known as Tino, dumping more than a month’s worth of rain in just 24 hours in some areas, causing devastating flooding that turned roads into rivers, submerged homes and overturned cars.
In Talisay city, rows of houses were destroyed and poor communities along the Mananga River were buried in mud and rubble. In Cebu City, rescue workers were seen wading through waist-deep water to rescue trapped residents from roofs and submerged houses.
Karumaegi is the worst typhoon to hit the region this year. Late Thursday, the death toll in the Philippines had risen to about 200, with the Civil Defense Bureau saying at least 135 people were missing and 96 injured.
Jimmy Abatayo, who lost his wife and nine close relatives in Cebu, was overwhelmed with grief and guilt as he ran his palm over his wife’s coffin.
“I could swim. I told my family to swim. You will be saved. Just swim, be brave and keep swimming,” Abatayo, 53, told The Associated Press. “They didn’t listen to me, because I’ll never see them again.”
Another Talisay survivor found his home washed away. “We couldn’t salvage anything,” Mary Sablon, 52, told Reuters.
Marlon Enriquez, 58, of Cebu City, said the floodwaters “came in so fast” that he didn’t have time to collect his belongings. It was the first flood he had experienced in the 16 years he had lived there.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday declared a national state of disaster and pledged to continue relief and response efforts.
Why was the storm so destructive and deadly?
The Philippines is no stranger to typhoons, and local officials said Kalmaegi was the 20th named storm to impact the country this year.
Although it wasn’t the strongest storm ever, it was slow-moving and dumped a lot of water into populated areas. Officials said most people drowned.
In Cebu, the rugged terrain allowed water to flow directly into poorly drained areas.
“While public attention is often focused on wind speed, and in fact wind speed is the number one factor in how meteorologists classify wind speed, in most cases water is the biggest killer,” CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said.
Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy director of the Philippine Civil Defense Agency, told local media that the storm’s impact was exacerbated by clogged waterways in an already flood-prone area and an apparent lack of understanding of early warnings.
“We need to see how we can get an early warning and turn that into action,” he said.
Alejandro also called for better large-scale drainage systems and resilient infrastructure that can withstand the threat of more intense storms accelerated by climate change.
The Philippines, one of Asia’s most flood-prone countries, has also been embroiled in a major corruption scandal involving its flood control projects this year, sending thousands of protesters into the streets.
Dozens of congressmen, senators and construction companies are accused of receiving kickbacks on funds that were supposed to go toward establishing thousands of flood control projects.
The Western Pacific Ocean is the most active tropical basin on Earth, but global ocean temperatures have been at record levels for each of the past eight years.
As the oceans heat up due to human-induced global warming, they provide enough energy to strengthen storms.
The climate crisis is intensifying rainfall events like those seen in Vietnam and Typhoon Karmaegi. This is because warmer air can hold more moisture, which squeezes it out into towns, cities, and communities.
In September, Typhoon Lagasa was the region’s strongest storm of the year, bringing destructive winds and heavy rain to the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China.
