TOPIC: TYPHOONS

(by: Jessica Mae C. Eva BSA - 2b)

A GREAT DEVASTATION

Devastation, a destruction, destroying of things, a great danger that everyone can never escape. At present, Global Warming devastation has been overshadowed by other major problems of the world such as the Financial Crisis, hitting the global economy. People are slowly forgetting the major causes and effects of this natural phenomena. Global Warming slowly setbacks to the world financial crisis and many environmental enthusiasts are concerned that the global financial crisis could result in the turn down in the fight against this natural calamity.

Typhoon is one of the major effect of global warming. Every year, typhoons seem to be much stronger as it hit countries it passes by. The Philippines, an archipelago in the central part of Southeast Asia and lies in the Western Pacific Area, is located along the typhoon prone area of the world. Being a country on the western part of the Pacific Ocean, it could never escaped the monster - like typhoons that are annually visiting it. These typhoons come from the Marianas area in the Pacific Ocean. But what is a typhoon? How do it form? When you say typhoon, it is a weather disturbance which consists of strong winds and rain. It usually have a maximum wind of at least 120 kilometers per hour. A very strong wind, that is why the word where the term typhoon came from which is a Chinese word "taifun" means great wind. Typhoon is a result of the fusion of the hot sea water and cold air above the sea. This fusion will result to an active Low Pressure Area and while it is in water, it continuously acquires great pressure coming from the heat of the sea water and thus, transforming into a tropical depression until it became a full - developed typhoon.

Different countries have different terminologies in calling this natural phenomena. In the part of Western Pacific Area, it is called typhoon or storms while on the opposite side of the world, they usually call it hurricane or cyclone. Nevertheless, these refer to only one type of natural calamity which is typhoon. In the Philippines, an average of 20 typhoons every year has been recorded by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Space Administration, a government agency which is in charged of the meteorological aspects in the country. Out of these 20, a maximum of 3 typhoons are considered strong type or super typhoons. Why super typhoons? Because they usually have the strongest winds and largest destruction with them. Recently, the most destructive typhoon ever recorded is Super Typhoon Reming which hit the Philippines 3 years ago. On all of the regions of the country, Bicol Peninsula, was the one greatly affected by the said typhoon. Albay, in particular, suffered the greatest loss, not only economically, but also on human lives. What causes this devastation? No other than, the majestic Mayon Volcano. Before the typhoon devastation, the majestic Mayon erupted two months before. The eruption disbursed pyroclastic materials such as volcanic blocks, sands and magma. After the eruption, these pyroclastic materials were intact at the slopes of Mayon and when the typhoon passes through Mayon Volcano, it swept all the pyroclastic materials from the slope burrying the towns of Albay which are on the slope of the mountain. Albay turned into a ghost town because of the almost 5 - meter mudslides. Houses were buried to the ground and many lives were killed. Almost thousands of families mourned because of the great devastation that they suffered. But we all know, it's nature's will. We can never resist the occurrence of this tragedy but we can do a lot to help save our home , the Mother Earth in order to lessen the risk of this kind of nightmare.