Hurricane!

Blogging about the typhoon warning in Hong Kong, and keeping it clean.

Last Friday there was a typhoon warning in Hong Kong and it was rated at an 8 out of 10 so it was pretty serious. I was a bit oblivious to what was going on around me because I decided to have the day off from working and went into town to pamper myself (get a haircut).

If you're in the neighborhood, try to help out with typhoon recovery in the Philippines.

Just as we entered the holiday season, another tragedy has befallen the Filipino people –mudflows from the slopes of the Mayon volcano, triggered by heavy rains from typhoon “Reming” (international codename: Durian) buried at least eight villages in Albay province in the Bicol region. As of December 1, the mudflows have killed at least 338 people, more bodies are still being recovered. Local officials have warned that the death toll could hit a thousand.

The typhoon damage in the Philippines is terrible for those waiting to hear from family.

Since I don't have television in my room, You Tube has become one of my most visited sites. This morning while taking a brief break from cleaning my apartment, I watched some videos of the typhoon devastation in Bicol. I was naturally saddened by what I saw and became paranoid because I read in an on line newspaper that 4,000 people are now in evacuation sites in Tabaco. It's been 2 days since I haven't had any text message from my mother. I tried several times to contact her but it seems that there are no cellphone signals there. I am praying that they are safe.

Is climate change the reason for the unusually strong typhoon winds in the Philippines?

The recent wave of super typhoon that has rampaged through the Philippines could partly be explained by global warming. If one has noticed it, Milenyo and Reming had more winds that are stronger than ever before than rain which explains why so many houses and infrastructure were blown away instead of being submerged in floodwater.

Small islands are struggling with Mother Nature.

As a Pacific island destination, Lateu struggles to sell itself. A typhoon wiped away its only beach a few years ago and today a handful of squalid thatched huts stand forlornly on its coastline. It will soon be a deserted village, its population the first real victims of rising sea levels brought about by global warming.