21 November 2013

The extraordinary footage of the Typhoon Haiyan storm surge

Posted by Dave Petley

Context of the storm surge video

Whilst this is a landslide blog, I could not ignore the extraordinary footage that has appeared in the last few days of the Typhoon Haiyan storm surge in the Philippines.  Nickson Gensis, who took this video was sheltering upstairs in a solidly built house in Hernani in Eastern Samar when the storm struck.  This map shows the approximate location of Hernani relative to the track of the eye of the storm:

Storm surge

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And this is an image (from here) of the village after the storm had passed through:

Storm surge

https://www.knoxnews.com/photos/galleries/2013/nov/14/diarrhea-starvation-begin-take-toll-philippines/80256/

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The storm surge video

This remarkable video is on Youtube and should be embedded below.  The really interesting part occurs from about 40 seconds, so do stick with it:

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The damage shown in the picture above can be seen in a quite different light once you have seen this video.  The high levels of loss are really unsurprising, and one can only imagine the terror of those who were in the path of the storm surge.  This should be compulsory viewing for those who think it is acceptable to continue to increase the temperature of, and thus the amount of kinetic energy, our atmosphere.