This week, International Insight takes a break from geopolitics to examine the super typhoon tearing across southeast Asia.
Ragasa.
The Tagalog word for scramble.
And that is exactly what many southeast Asian nations are having to do as Super Typhoon Ragasa sweeps across the eastern seaboard of Asia.
What is a super typhoon?
Sitting in arid Texas where even thunderstorms can prove elusive, the idea of any typhoon – not to mention a super typhoon – can seem a bit far-fetched. But, a typhoon is nothing more than a hurricane by another name.
Both hurricanes and typhoons describe the same sort of weather: a tropical cyclone, or a “rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation,” according to the NOAA.
The weakest, or least intense, of these systems is classified as a tropical depression, growing into a tropical storm, and then finally graduating to a hurricane, typhoon, or tropical cyclone.
The difference between these latter three descriptions lies in location. Strong tropical cyclones occurring in the North Atlantic or central or eastern North Pacific – essentially in the waters surrounding the United States – are classified as hurricanes. Strong tropical cyclones occurring in the Northwest Pacific – or the waters bordering China and the rest of east Asia – are classified as typhoons. And finally, such disturbances occurring in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific – including the western coast of South America, the western coast of Africa, and much of India, Australia, and the Middle East – are simply tropical cyclones.
So then, what is a super typhoon?
A super typhoon occurs when the sustained surface-wind strength of a normal typhoon reaches 240 kmph, creating the rough equivalent of a category 4 or 5 hurricane. Ragasa falls into this last category of a super typhoon, promising untold destruction as the strongest and most powerful storm of the year.
Super Typhoon Ragasa –
As of the time of this article’s writing – Tuesday afternoon, Ragasa had yet to make landfall.
But despite not making landfall yet, Ragasa’s destructive capabilities are already on the rise.
Hong Kong’s observatory has issued a storm warning at level 10, the highest level of alert, and the super typhoon has been categorized as equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane with wind gusts reaching 285 kmph, or 177 mph.
Already, Ragasa has passed through the northern Philippines, inducing landslides, strong winds, and heavy rainfall, causing flight cancellations, mass evacuations, and school closures, and killing a 74-year-old man after a landslide crushed his car with details unclear on three other vehicles trapped in the rubble.
The super typhoon then passed under Taiwan where, according to the BBC, it caused a “barrier lake, formed by previous landslides” to burst its banks, causing water to flood into the Guangfu township, killing two and leaving countless more missing or trapped. In addition to intense flooding, the burst mountain lake “washed away a bridge, uprooted trees[,] and submerged cars,” leaving 263 people trapped before they were evacuated to higher grounds.
In terms of infrastructural destruction, Ragasa is projected to create millions of dollars in damages for Hong Kong businesses owners, specifically in terms of damage to glass curtain walls, which experts indicate could take a year to repair. Rather than wait for the storm to occur and attempt to repair the damage, some experts suggest taking preemptive measures, such as adding safety nets to protect buildings from debris, to cut down repair costs.
At the time of this article’s writing, the super typhoon is projected to touch down at Guangdong province on the eastern coast of China by Wednesday where many schools and businesses have been closed and about 370,000 people have been evacuated.
Conclusion –
While natural disasters are nothing new, Super Typhoon Ragasa emphasizes a recent trend of increasingly destructive and powerful weather phenomena.
From the wildfires that tore across Spain and California, to the rising frequency of earthquakes in the Middle East, to now Ragasa, it’s clear that our climate is rapidly changing – and not for the better. As these catastrophes ravage communities across the world more frequently and violently than ever before, it’s imperative that we take action – not just to mitigate their effects or address their immediate causes, but to examine and solve the problem at its root.
Climate change must be addressed now, before the death toll and destruction wrought by these disasters reaches unbearable heights.
