Typhoon Kills At Least 375 in Philippines.

Satellite view of Typhoon Rai striking the Philippines 
late last week. The death toll continues to ris. 

 Typhoon Rai, as it was known, caused a little-reported but still very deadly disaster in the Philippines over the past few days. 

According to the ABC News:

"The death toll from the strongest typhoon to battle the Philippines this year climbed to 375 with more than 50 others still missing and several central provinces struggling with downed communications and power outages and pleading for food and water." 

This disaster seems to have flown under the media radar, as I haven't seen a whole lot of news covering this.  The death toll in the Philippines is nearly four times that of the toll from the awful tornadoes in and near Kentucky earlier this month. 

Typhoons are common in the Philippines. As many as 20 of them can strike the nation in a single year. However, as you can tell, this one  was worse than usual. When it was at top strength, Typhoon Rai's winds were at 121 mph, gusting to 168. 

The death toll would have been much higher, but thousands of people were evacuated from coastal areas ahead of the approaching storm.  About 700,000 people were in the path of the storm's worst effects. 

After leaving the Philippines, the typhoon neared Vietnam, but steered away from that nation, sparing it the worst effects. It has since dissipated northeast of Vietnam. 

Videos. As usual click on the hyperlinks if the video isn't viewable in the post.

Washington Post has this video of the typhoon: 

I'm struck by stunning natural beauty of the area of the Philippines hit by this typhoon juxtaposed with the extreme destruction in this Al Jazeera report: