MANILA – The death toll from Typhoon Kalmaegi has surged past 90 in the Philippines, with rescue workers recovering dozens of bodies from devastating floods described as the worst in recent memory. The storm’s catastrophic impact underscores the nation’s acute vulnerability to extreme weather, with scientists warning that at least three to five more major storms could lash the archipelago before the year’s end.
The province of Cebu, one of the nation’s most populous and developed islands, bore the brunt of the typhoon’s fury. Floodwaters of an unprecedented scale and speed rampaged through towns and cities, sweeping away cars, riverside shanties, and even massive shipping containers.
“The situation is unprecedented,” Cebu Governor Pamela Baricuatro told reporters on Tuesday. “We were expecting the winds to be the dangerous part, but the water is what’s truly putting our people at risk. The floodwaters are just devastating.”
The scale of the tragedy in Cebu became clearer on Wednesday. Rhon Ramos, a spokesman for the province, announced that 35 bodies had been recovered from the flooded areas of Liloan, a town within the metropolitan area of Cebu City. This grim discovery brought the provincial death toll to 76. Nationally, Rafaelito Alejandro, deputy administrator of the civil defence office, confirmed at least 17 additional deaths in other provinces, with 26 people still missing.
Unprecedented Rainfall and a Climate Link
The trigger for the disaster was an immense deluge. In the 24 hours before Kalmaegi made landfall, the area around Cebu City was inundated with 183 millimetres (seven inches) of rain—a figure that eclipses its entire monthly average of 131 millimetres, according to weather specialist Charmagne Varilla.
This pattern of intense rainfall is increasingly familiar to Filipinos and aligns with global scientific consensus. Climate scientists have long warned that human-driven climate change is supercharging tropical cyclones. Warmer ocean surfaces provide more energy, allowing storms to intensify rapidly, while a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to exponentially heavier rainfall and catastrophic flooding.
A Nation Reeling and a Tragic Setback
The typhoon’s chaos was compounded by a tragic setback for relief efforts. The Philippine military confirmed that a Super Huey helicopter, one of four deployed to assist in typhoon relief, crashed on northern Mindanao island. The aircraft was en route to the coastal city of Butuan “in support of relief operations” when it went down.
Hours after the crash, Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Maria Christina Basco announced that the remains of all six people on board—two pilots and four crew members—had been recovered by troops. “We’re waiting to confirm the identities via forensics in order to ascertain their identities,” she told reporters.
In total, nearly 400,000 people were pre-emptively evacuated from the typhoon’s path, a testament to the country’s improved but still strained disaster response mechanisms.
A Recurring Nightmare with More to Come
As of Wednesday morning, Kalmaegi was moving westwards towards the tourist hotspots of Palawan province, carrying sustained winds of 130 kilometres (81 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 180 kph.
The Philippines, an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, is hit by an average of 20 major storms and typhoons annually, which routinely devastate regions where millions live in poverty with limited resilience.
With Kalmaegi, the country has already reached that annual average. Weather specialist Varilla confirmed that the nation should brace for “three to five more” potential storms before the end of December. This forecast follows an already active season, including September’s Super Typhoon Ragasa, which tore the roofs off buildings in the northern Philippines before claiming 14 lives in nearby Taiwan.
As recovery efforts continue in waterlogged communities, the escalating frequency and intensity of these storms present a formidable and growing challenge for the disaster-prone nation.
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