Unusual Typhoon Leaves Southern Philippines Reeling [1]

Typhoon victims stand outside their destroyed house and toppled banana trees swept at the height of Typhoon Bopha, in New Bataan town. (Photo: REUTERS/Erik De Castro)

Government agencies and rescue teams in the Philippines are warily watching Typhoon Bopha.

The violent storm blasted the southern part of the island nation earlier this week before moving out to sea.

But now forecasters are warning that Bopha might take a turn back toward land and hit the country again, farther to the north.

It would be a 1-2 punch for a country that gets way more than its share of natural disasters, from tropical storms to mention earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

But typhoon Bopha seemed to come almost out of nowhere. It came outside of the usual typhoon season and hit a part of the country that’s off the usual storm track.

It was the country’s strongest storm of the year when it hit earlier this week. Combine that with a hilly landscape ravaged by mining and a population unprepared for a storm, and the awful result is more than 400 dead, nearly as many missing, and more than 300-thousand homeless.

Survivors told of chaos as the storm hit.

“We were hearing loud winds that night,” one man said. “We didn’t know where to run, the winds and the rain brought by the typhoon were so strong.”

Others told of shards of metal roofing being hurled through the air like machetes.

Officials in Compostela Valley, one of the worst hit provinces on the island of Mindanao, were considering mass graves for unclaimed bodies because of health concerns.

Officials have confirmed more than 250 dead in just that one region as rescuers continued to dig through mud and debris today in search of more bodies and any possible trapped survivors.

To listen to the recording and read the rest of this story, visit theworld.org. [2]