Some storms you can write about with a kind of detachment, as an exercise in synchronicity. But the typhoon that slammed into the Philippines is in a league apart.
This storm had gusts up to 170 miles an hour, which puts it in the Category 5 niche for hurricanes. In a country where 96 million people live in what is basically abject poverty, there’s little hope that devastation will be minimal. When the first casualty reports came through as 1,000, it seemed incomprehensible to me. I figure it would be in the tens of thousands. Then this evening, November 9, the reports were putting deaths at around 10,000. But when your rescue teams are finding bodies in the roads, in standing water, in buildings, you can bet the death toll will exceed 10,000. And as of today, November 10, it does.
I suspect there’s a synchro rolled up somewhere in this castastrophe. I tried to find out what the word Haiyan – the name of the typhoon – means. I found a number of different meanings and among them was that yan is Chinese for angry or annoyed if uttered in one tone of voice and means respect if spoken in another tone. Hai in Chinese supposedly means angry ocean. Respect the angry ocean?
a horrific storm leaving horrific injury and damage to so many – i was wondering about its name as well – and i’m sure there will be many other interesting stories associated with this storm before its over –
This is a pretty good pod-cast if you get a chance to listen to it.
Expanding Mind – The Politics of Synchronicity – 10/27/13
Congressional exorcism, magical thinking, and the technology of serendipity:
Erik and Maja talk about divination today.
https://prn.fm/2013/10/expanding-mind-politics-synchronicity-102713/
Thanks, I’ll take a look!
Jeff Masters, who founded weather underground, says that the typhoon was the strongest in recorded history to make landfall – winds of 196 MPH.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2573
I’ve just watched the latest on the lunchtime news, so terrible. I read that Haiyan means Petrel in Chinese, which is supposedly a sea-bird. Maybe there’s a connection between the similarity of petrel and petrol.
And now another storm is headed toward them: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/zoraida-philippines_n_4255529.html
“The word “petrel” comes from the Latin name for the Christian Saint Peter, and refers to the habits of certain species to hover just above the ocean waves, with their feet barely touching the water, thus giving an appearance of walking on water, as St. Peter is said to have done.”
So we’ve had St.Jude in Europe and now St.Peter in Asia.
I don’t want any saints to visit Australia this Christmas,that’s for sure.
Ironic! No saints here in Florida, either, please. Hurricane season ends Nov 30!
Sacked priest Kevin Lee killed by typhoon.
“An Australian man removed from the priesthood for secretly marrying has been killed by typhoon Haiyan just weeks after becoming a father.
Kevin Lee, who made headlines worldwide in May last year when he was defrocked after revealing he had been married for more than a year, drowned after disappearing in rough surf off Samar Island in the Philippines. His body was found by police early on Sunday morning.
Mr Lee had been living with his Filipino wife, Josefina, and recently celebrated the birth of a baby girl, Michelle.
The 50-year-old, a whistleblower on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, recently reflected on his blog that had he not broken his vow of celibacy, his daughter would not be alive.
”I have always believed that nothing happens without God’s divine permission,” he wrote.
The couple met in a Manila karaoke bar in 2011, when Mr Lee, then the priest at Padre Pio parish in Glenmore Park in Sydney’s west, was on a pilgrimage with other members of the church.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/sacked-priest-kevin-lee-killed-by-typhoon-20131110-2xa4r.html
Wow.