Death Toll in Philippines Expected to Exceed 10,000: "We Don't Have Enough Body Bags"

Typhoon Haiyan's Fury

Update: Alerts have been issued for the Philippines as Tropical Depression Zoraida threatens to form into a tropical storm/typhoon and follow virtually the same track as Haiyan. This will bring more high winds and heavy rains to areas completely devastated by Haiyan, making an already desperate situation even more desperate:


Update II: There are fears that the initial estimate of 10,000 people killed by the horrific Typhoon Haiyan is far too low in the face of this monumental cataclysm. Rescue workers have described the once vibrant Tacloban City as a "corpse-choked wasteland", with rescuers scrambling for body bags and places to bury the dead. Survivors continue to patrol the streets in shell-shocked dismay and silence, searching for surviving family members, mementos as well as food, shelter and fresh water. No city or town in Haiyan's devilish path remain standing. Many communities up the coast have been left virtually inaccessible by the overwhelming debris field, where thousands more people are certainly dead or dying. Conservative damage estimates from the storm are from between $8-15 Billion US, making this one of the most expensive disasters...this year.  The human cost of this disaster is beyond measure.

There are terrifying stories coming out of the Philippines this weekend after one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), smashed into the Southeast Asia island nation as a post-Category Five super typhoon on Friday.

Packing sustained winds in excess of 200mph, the storm lay to waste entire cities in the Eastern Samar region of the country. While official estimates on a death toll are not clear at this time, the situation in the Philippines is clearly very grim. Local officials and law enforcement in the region are calling out for global support in the rescue and clean-up efforts, begging for emergency supplies from the international community as well as body bags to contain dead bodies being recovered. In some more remote areas, officials are resorting to burying dead bodies, many unidentified,  in mass graves out of fear of creating a disease epidemic.

Early estimates fear that at least 10,000 people are dead and that many others will perish due to a lack of clean, potable water, fresh food and medicine, especially in more remote regions where towns are completely inaccessible due to debris-clogged roadways. Early reports indicate that a large portion of the country's infrastructure is completely destroyed and could take years if not decades to repair.

The city of Tacloban, which has a population of over 200,000, appears to be completely devastated by the incredible force of the storm, which created a deadly tidal storm surge that swept into the city and damaged or destroyed nearly every building in the entire city. The death toll in Tacloban alone is feared to be in the thousands. A correspondent for the BBC says that thousands of people have sought temporary shelter at the local airport in Tacloban City, which sustained massive damage from Haiyan, many desperate to get flights out of the city, although only emergency aid flights are being allowed to land and leave at this time. Aerial views from the region show miles and miles of city left in complete devastation as far as the eye can see. Thousands of survivors are now roaming the debris-ridden streets in shock, in search of shelter and food. ""People are walking like zombies looking for food," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. "It's like a [horror] movie."

The ferocious storm of the century comes only weeks after a series of less powerful storms swept across the nation as well as an intense earthquake which rattled parts of the Philippines and toppled buildings and frayed nerves, leaving more than 300 people dead. 

The storm is expected to make landfall again in Vietnam early on Monday as a far less powerful storm. Over 600,000 people in Vietnam have been evacuated as a precaution from the still dangerous typhoon. New satellite imagery shows a storm currently developing over the same region that spawned Haiyan, with fears a second storm could follow close on its deadly heels.

Update: According to Weather Underground, Typhoon Haiyan is now officially the strongest storm on record, besting the old record set by Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Gulf Coast of the US in 1969:

Graph courtesy of Weather Underground

With the Rising Sun: Japan Marks Somber 1 Year Anniversary of Cataclysm

Today, the somber nation of Japan marks the one-year anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that devastated a large area of the island nation. 

The catastrophic 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of of Japan near Tokyo on March 11, 2011. The earthquake itself panicked citizens and damaged thousands of buildings in a wide area, but it was the ensuing tsunami that created most of the devastation and loss of life. Many towns and cities were completely inundated by the massive tsunami as it rolled relentlessly across the Japanese landscape, obliterating entire towns and villages and scarring the country and its people for a lifetime.

The entire nation observed a moment of silence at the exact time the temblor struck, at 2:46PM local time. The combination of earthquake and tsunami killed at least 19,000 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of private homes and businesses. Important infrastructure was also left devastated, and the tsunami swept over the Fukushima nuclear facility, causing the power plant to go into a full scale meltdown, with the escaping radiation poisoning a large area around the crippled plant. Japanese officials now admit that a zone around the nuclear facility will not be inhabitable for perhaps hundreds of years, due to dangerous levels of radiation. It is now considered the worst nuclear accident in world history.

Some 3,000 people are still unaccounted for in the aftermath of the tragedy, leaving countless family members without any closure to their mourning. The catastrophe also left an indelible mark on the Japanese economy, costing hundreds of trillions of yen in damage, and bringing about a mini-recession to the important industrial nation.

The people of Japan earned the admiration and respect of the entire world with their composure, discipline and resilience in the face of the overwhelming cataclysm while its companies impressed with the speed with which they bounced back, mending torn supply chains.

2011: Year of the Disaster, The Revolution, & The Big Change

According to the Chinese calendar,  2011 was the Year of the Rabbit. The statistics, however, paint a portrait far more sinister and disturbing than any cute and innocent-looking rabbit with a crinkly, wet nose and fluffy bunny tail.

The year will go down in the record books as the Year of the Unprecedented Disaster, with seemingly one horrific natural disaster happening at least once a week...or more often. There was record-breaking snowfalls and massive flooding. Several horrifying tornado outbreaks hit across the South in the Spring of this year that possessed never-before seen power and strength. In fact, twelve separate disasters during the year caused over $1 billion in damages, a highly disturbing record that appears as if it might be broken by the coming year....2012...

A beyond-horrifying earthquake and tsunami devastated a large portion of Japan, killing tens of thousands and leaving trillions of dollars in damages, making it the costliest disaster in history, for the time being. The tsunami waves washed over the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing the world's first ever "China Syndrome" melt-down event, with very little mention in the news of the devastating consequences to Japan and the rest of the world. It is now all but forgotten, except for the people suffering in its radioactive wake in Japan.

Floods inundated North Dakota, decimating entire cities such as Minot. Two nuclear power plants in Nebraska were completely submerged beneath the deluge, for the first time in US history. The mighty Mississippi River experienced a "One in a Thousand Years" mega-flood that overcame dams and levees and caused billions of dollars in damages. A bizarre 5.8 earthquake rattled the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States, felt from Virginia to Maine, causing over $100 million in damages and frazzling the nerves of over a hundred million people. A mere few days later, the same part of the country was dealing with powerful and potentially deadly Hurricane Irene, which dumped incredible amounts of water in a very short period of time.

The Southwest of the United States withered under an unprecedented drought and heat wave, that killed billions of dollars in essential crops and cattle. Wildfires fanned by the drought scorched hundreds of millions of acres of land and threatened the famed Los Alamos Nuclear plant and storage facility.

Two separate tornado outbreaks devastated a wide swathe of the US. A record breaking number of tornadoes tore across the South, obliterating entire towns. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was devastated by a once extremely rare F5 tornado. Joplin, Missouri, was completely leveled by another F5. The St. Louis airport was hit by a menacing tornado straight out of  Roland Emmerich's films The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, causing tens of millions of dollars in damages.

Australia was hit by the most powerful cyclone of all time, Cyclone Yasi. A post-Category 5 storm, it unleashed a never-before-seen fury on the Australian coast, an area already devastated by the worst flooding in history, as complete cities were washed away by the swift flood waters, causing billions of dollars in damages. Certain areas of the country saw years worth of rain in a matter of days.


Elsewhere, volcanoes caused fear and devastation, from Chile to Indonesia, from Ecuador and Guatemala, from the Spanish Canary Islands to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia and Iceland, earthquake swarms and volcanic eruptions seemed to be taking place somewhere on the planet every single day. Ash clouds from a volcano erupting in Chile halted airplane travel to Australia and New Zealand for several weeks, creating travel chaos and millions of dollars in loses. Volcanoes that have not erupted for hundreds of thousands of years erupted in places such as Eritrea.


The city of Christchurch, New Zealand,  was left in ruins after a 6.3 quake shook the city in February that killed almost two hundred people. This was only a few months after another earthquake rocked the town and terrorized the populace. Since February, hundreds of earthquakes have struck the once peaceful and tranquil town, traumatizing the local population and creating a mass Exodus of tens of thousands of citizens, who have chosen to leave the beautiful area of the country to start a new life elsewhere for fear their lives in Christchurch will never be normal again. Only this past week, the city was rocked by two more strong earthquakes, putting the population further on edge.

A extremely rare earthquake destroyed the beautiful city of Lorca, Spain, and another deadly quake hit Turkey, killing thousands of people. Thailand was inundated by never-before-seen flooding, with millions of acres of land remaining under water, months after the floods began. Tornadoes hit areas where they have never been witnessed before or are very rare, including central Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal and Peru. Europe was tossed into the deep freeze last winter, with bone jarring temperatures and record breaking snowfalls. Satellite images from space showed the entirety of the UK and Ireland blanketed by snow for the first time in recorded history.

A powerful tropical typhoon hit the Philippines only days before Christmas, unleashing a torrent of flood waters that have swept away entire villages and towns. The disaster has claimed over 1200 lives so far, with thousands more still missing, as the country mourns its dead and tries desperately to repair the damages to important infrastructure. 

Where there weren't disasters, there was revolution, war, famine, pestilence, civil unrest and violence. A revolution began in earnest in Egypt, with tens of millions of Egyptians taking to the streets, demanding that President Hosni Mubarak be removed from the office. The Arab Spring revolution quickly spread throughout the entire region, from Libya, Bahrain, Syria and beyond. Protests have become common-place throughout the world, as people gather strength and determination in numbers to force change. London and the rest of the United Kingdom witnessed a week's worth of shocking rioting and street violence that rivaled any in the nation's history. The Horn of Africa saw the worst famine in decades, with hundreds of thousands dying from malnutrition and starvation, with millions more in dire peril.

The Occupy Wall Street movement began in earnest as well in October, with thousands of people deciding to take a stand against the nightmarish greed and deadly avarice that has gripped the entire planet, creating the harsh injustices and incredible violence sweeping the world. The economic crisis hit its dizzying nadir in 2011, as Europe withered on the vine in a tangled credit crunch, as countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain saw their credit ratings downgraded and nearly defaulting on their national debts. The future of the Euro continues to hang in the balance, a massive threat to the US and the world's economies.

Elsewhere, people's behavior has rocketed off the charts, with bizarre attacks, psychotic episodes, rants, hideous abuse, killings, rapes and shocking violence parading across our television and computer screens, begging the question, Has the entire world gone completely mad? 

As the clock counts down to the end of 2011, thoughts go out to the upcoming new year, the most talked-about and discussed year of all time...2012. Spend any amount of time watching the History Channel and you will have without a doubt heard those drumbeats counting down the hours, as the unbelievable yet wholly undeniable changes we are currently witnessing are but a small preview of what is to come...

"The drumbeats...they are quickening..."