Video: Typhoon Haiyan moves towards the Philippines
An angry Haiyan as seen by Japan Meteorological Agency’s MTSAT satellite at 01:57 GMT on 8 November 2013 (Image: NOAA) What typhoon Haiyan might look like if it were over the Atlantic Ocean off the US east coast (Image: Rick Kohrs, SSEC via CIMSS, University of Wisconsin)
One of the strongest typhoons on record has blasted the Philippines. The storm crashed through the central islands of the archipelago on its way back out to sea. Contact has been lost with many of the affected areas, so it is unclear how many people have been killed or injured, but .
Typhoon Haiyan is probably the , according to meteorologist Jeff Masters of US-based company Weather Underground. The US navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center says , with gusts as strong as 324 km/h.
A few typhoons in the 1960s were thought to have had stronger winds, but they have since been downgraded after it emerged that the measurements were unreliable.
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Haiyan formed in the central Pacific earlier this week and headed west. It on 6 November, and struck the Philippines last night as a category 5 storm, threatening the second-largest city, Cebu.
According to the , Haiyan has now moved out to sea and is , towards .
The storm is expected to gradually weaken to category 4 over the sea before .
Vietnam’s National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting has issued a , while the China Meteorological Agency has launched a .
