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Heavy snow in Turkey piled up on a pedestrian walkway causing it to collapse. Scott Pelley reports.
© Reuters/Erik De CastroA pregnant woman, who survived flooding, holds her child on a stretcher while being evacuated in New Bataan town in Compostela Valley in southern Philippines December 6, 2012.
Typhoon Bopha, with central winds of up to 120 kph (74 mph) and gusts of up to 150 kph (93 mph), was moving west-northwest of the central Philippines after ravaging the resource-rich island of Mindanao.
The National Disaster Agency put the death toll at 379 after Bopha triggered landslides and floods along the coast and in farming and mining towns inland in the provinces of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental. The death toll is expected to rise.
Arturo "Arthur" Uy, governor of Compostela Valley, the worst-hit area, said estimates showed 200 had died and almost 600 remained missing in his province alone, higher than the agency's tally.
"This is the first time a typhoon with signal number three has crossed our province," he said. "We evacuated people from riverbanks and shorelines. But the floods and strong winds battered not just the riverbanks but also places where residents were supposed to be safe."
About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction. Almost exactly a year ago, Typhoon Washi killed 1,500 people in Mindanao, but most storms make landfall further north.
A freak tornado hit Auckland Thursday killing three people and causing "utter devastation" as wild weather ripped apart homes and caused flash flooding in New Zealand's largest city. The storm, packing gusts of more than 110 kilometers (70 miles) per hour, struck suburban Hobsonville in the afternoon, toppling trees, ripping roofs from houses and sending debris flying. Civil Defense said three people died and seven were hospitalized, with two of the fatalities believed to have been caused by a concrete slab that landed on the cabin of a truck and the other by a falling tree. About 150 homes were badly damaged, many rendered uninhabitable, forcing residents into temporary accommodation at a nearby air force base.
Resident Suzanne McFadden said the storm roared through in "five minutes of utter devastation." Police urged people to stay indoors as flash floods blocked roads and falling trees brought down power lines, blacking out about 1,300 homes. The Met service weather agency said the tornado was created by a series of intense thunderstorms that lashed the city through the day, largely dissipating by early evening, although there were fears the winds could pick up overnight. Prime Minister John Key expressed condolences to the families of the dead and praised the efforts of emergency services, who swiftly sealed off an area of about one square kilometre (0.4 square miles) that was worst affected by the tornado. -TN
Resident Suzanne McFadden said the storm roared through in "five minutes of utter devastation." Police urged people to stay indoors as flash floods blocked roads and falling trees brought down power lines, blacking out about 1,300 homes. The Met service weather agency said the tornado was created by a series of intense thunderstorms that lashed the city through the day, largely dissipating by early evening, although there were fears the winds could pick up overnight. Prime Minister John Key expressed condolences to the families of the dead and praised the efforts of emergency services, who swiftly sealed off an area of about one square kilometre (0.4 square miles) that was worst affected by the tornado. -TN
© Jessica Gow/ScanpixA street in central Stockholm on Wednesday
The weather service issued a class 2 warning for Sweden's southeast due to the heavy snowfall and winds, meaning the weather could put the public in danger and disrupt infrastructure.
"Commuters can expect the snowfall to continue," meteorologist Linnea Rehn with the weather service SMHI tells Swedish Radio. There may yet be another 10 centimetres before this evening."
"They thought that they were already secure in a safe area, but they didn't know the torrents of water would go their way," Compostela Valley Provincial Governor Arturo Uy told local media. A road into the town was blocked by debris, reports said, but the military said it was hoping to get helicopters into the area to assess the situation. Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said body bags and other emergency supplies would be rushed to affected areas. "The bodies are left lying on the ground in the open in New Bataan and we don't want to risk the spread of disease," she told Agence-France Presse news agency.
© Bill Bradley / WikimediaCyclone Tracy, which hit Darwin, Australia, on Christmas Day 1974, killed 65 people and destroyed 70% of the city's homes, but is a "mere kitten" compared to a 'black swan' cyclone that could hit the city – and others – in the future.
Such a storm is an example of what Ning Lin, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA, calls a "black swan" cyclone. Something similar, she says, could hit the Persian Gulf, inundating unprepared cities like Dubai - which has never seen a cyclone - with similarly enormous storm surges.
"A black swan is a surprise with huge impact," she said yesterday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. "For this study, we defined [it] as an event which cannot reasonably be anticipated based on historical records alone."
© Agence France Presse/Getty ImagesResidents brave heavy wind and rains during Typhoon Bopha on the southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday.
Typhoon Bopha made landfall at dawn, uprooting trees and tearing off roofs. The Weather Channel said the storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 160 mph and was the equivalent of a category five hurricane.
About 40 people were killed or missing in flash floods and landslides near a mining area on Mindanao, ABS-CBN television reported, saying waters and soil had swept through an army post.
A television reporter said she saw numerous bodies lined up near the army base. A military spokesman earlier said about 20 people, including six soldiers, were missing.
An intense typhoon thumped into the southern Philippines on Tuesday, destroying homes, setting off a landslide and killing more than two dozen people, authorities said. Typhoon Bopha struck the large southern island of Mindanao, which is rarely in the direct path of tropical cyclones, fueling fears that it could be as devastating as a storm that killed more than 1,200 people there almost a year ago.
Bopha, the most powerful typhoon to hit Mindanao in decades, had top winds of 175 kph (110 mph) as it came ashore over the city of Baganga early Tuesday. Millions of people, many of whom live in remote and unprepared communities, were in the storm's path, Philippine authorities and aid groups said.
Watch: iReporter captures Typhoon aftermath in southern Philippines
Bopha, the most powerful typhoon to hit Mindanao in decades, had top winds of 175 kph (110 mph) as it came ashore over the city of Baganga early Tuesday. Millions of people, many of whom live in remote and unprepared communities, were in the storm's path, Philippine authorities and aid groups said.
Watch: iReporter captures Typhoon aftermath in southern Philippines
Super-storms, freak tornadoes, heavy flooding, strong earthquakes and seas turning red... another month of earth changes on the Big Blue Marble.
© Weather Underground
Historic and potentially catastrophic Super Typhoon Bopha has made a direct hit on the southern Philippines on Tuesday morning, raising fears the impacts of the storm may be far worse than a much weaker 2011 storm that killed over 1200 people.
The powerful storm made landfall at 3:45 PM EST on Monday, 4:45 AM Tuesday local time.
The Category 5 Super Typhoon has sustained winds of over 161 mph - gusting to 195 mph - and is the most southerly typhoon ever recorded in the Western Pacific. AccuWeather reports it "is expected to bring life-threatening impacts."
