One of the places most affected by extreme weather events in the world, the Philippine archipelago recorded at least 42 deaths after the passage of Tropical Storm Megi, authorities said on Tuesday (12). The number of victims is expected to grow as rescue teams are able to advance in the search.
More than 17,000 people had to leave their homes after heavy rains caused flooding and power outages. Most of the victims died amid landslides and floods, consequences of Megi, known in the archipelago as Agaton.
Leyte Island was one of the hardest hit by the tropical storm – at least 100 people were injured and 22 died. Firefighters have difficulty accessing the most affected areas due to the large amount of mud formed after the rains.
More than a hundred communities, especially those close to rivers and beaches, were submerged after the storm and the continuous rain, which has not stopped. The recorded winds reached 65 km/h.
The Philippines typically sees at least 20 severe storms and typhoons annually, and Megi is just the first to hit the archipelago this year. Local authorities, however, were surprised by the intensity of the weather event.
“We’re in a dry season, but maybe climate change has changed that,” said Marissa Miguel Cano, a spokeswoman for the town of Baybay, one of the largest in Leyte. The main areas affected by landslides are those where there are corn and rice plantations, due to soil management, she explained.
The tropical storm’s impacts are observed just four months after Typhoon Rai left about 400 people dead, more than 500 injured and more than 300,000 homeless in the Asian archipelago.
Local scientists warn that the intensity of typhoons and severe storms has increased over the last few years, as a direct consequence of the climate emergency.
The Philippines is the portion of the southwest Pacific region most affected by extreme weather events, showed a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations’ climate arm, last September. Over the past 50 years, the archipelago has recorded 48,950 deaths as a result of these events — 75% of all deaths observed in the region.
The economic damage caused was approximately US$ 36.8 billion (R$ 172 billion), more than half of the amount in the last decade alone. The event with the highest number of victims recorded in the country was Cyclone Haiyan in 2013, when more than 7,300 died.
The Philippines is still the country most affected by natural disasters related to tropical cyclones – there were 295 over the last five decades, about 15% of the total recorded worldwide. Following are China (269) and Japan (101).
