Lesson 19-What were the effects of and responses to Typhoon Haiyan?

Question 1

Where did the typoon effect?

Answer 1

• The tropical storm originated in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
  It is one of the most powerful typhoons to affect the Philippines.

-the islands here regularly suffer from typhoons that sweep in from the southwest every year during the tropical storm season

Question 2

Why was the storm servere?

Answer 2

• The islands sit in an area of usually warmocean water, the sea temperature was 30°C
• Sea level rise (20cm increase around the world since 1900) is a factor as higher seas are known to contribute to greater storm surges
• Abstracting too much groundwater has caused subsidence in some parts of the country
• Tacloban stands at the end of a bay that is funnel shaped and this squeezes water into destructive storm surges

Question 3

Typhoon Haiyans characteristics

Answer 3

• Lowest pressure-895mb
• Peak strength- Cat 5
• Strength at landfall-Cat 5 with 195mph winds
• Radius of typhoon strengths winds- 53 miles
• Rainfall-400mm
• Storm surge height 15m

Question 4

Social impacts

Answer 4

• 6201 people died
• 1.1 million homes lost
• Casualties 28,626 from lack of aid
• 16 million affected

Secondary-disease, hunger, lack of shelter,medication
-influx of refugees into less affected areas
-two months later 21,000 families were still in 380 evacuation centres

Question 5

Economic impacts

Answer 5

• Damage estimated at $13 billion
• Between 50,000-120,000 tonnes of sugar was lost
• 175,000 acres of farmland damaged
  -accelerated the philipines as they are in a debt cycle with 20% of gov revenue spent on foreign debt repayments

Question 6

Environment impacts

Answer 6

• Loss of forest/trees and widespread flooding
• Coconut plantations were completely flattened when coconut exports accounted for over half of Philipines agriculture
• 90% of the rural population in affected areas are farmers

Question 7

Political impacts

Answer 7

• Gov under pressure to spread aid so President Aquino asked for international help the next day
  -Increased gov spending and new policies to improve disaster preparedness and response

Question 8

Short term responses

Answer 8

• 800,000 evacuated following a televised warning by the president
• Many found refuge in a stadium in Tacloban. However, many people died when it was flooded
• Main airport opened 3 days after and emergency aid arrived and in two weeks one million food packs and 250,000 litres of water were distributed
  -$1.5 billion of foreign aid

Question 9

Long term responses

Answer 9

• Build Back Better was the govs response to the typhoon. Launched in 2014 its intention was to upgrade buildings that were damaged to protect them from future disasters
• They have set up a no build zone along the coast in Eastern Visayas and a new storm surge warning system has been set up

Question 10

Human factors affecting the severity?

Answer 10

• Population density
• Coastal population
• Development level
• Complacency – frequent hazard zone
• Failed warning system
• Distraction due to government corruption

Question 11

Physical factors affecting the severity?

Answer 11

• Magnitude
• Track
• Sea surface temperature
• Climate change?
• Unexpectedly high storm surge
• Multi hazard zone,7.2 magnitude earthquake recently – link to park model

Question 12

What lessons were learnt from Haiyan?

Answer 12

• Despite the philipines having more education about typhoons and what to do when they happen, the physical factors outweigh the human factors
  -another typhoon occured here and the deth-toll was lower but it didnt hit as many islands