Hi there! For all you asian writers out there, you’d probably know what this dreaded typhoon is. (Sorry, if you think I’m racist) Typhoon Morakot was part of the monsoon season in Korea, Japan, Phillipines, and Taiwan. This typhoon killed over 50 people and left thousands missing and homeless. It even knocked down a hotel in Taiwan! Definitely scary. I’ll explain what this typhoon is, and how it got started.

The route of the typhoon (a.k.a hurricane) is:

Image via Wikipedia

As you can see, the path went right over Taiwan and the actual storm (at its peak) looked like this:

Image via Wikipedia

Disturbing, isn’t it? This HUGE storm went right over Taiwan. You can just imagine the destruction caused in the path of this awe-striking piece of nature. Sort of reminds you of Hurricane Katrina, doesn’t it? This typhoon (called typhoons in the pacific) was perhaps one of THE strongest. At 945 hPa, that’s pretty devastating. It’s fastest winds recorded was 175 km/hr (110 mph). Morakot was also the most heavy rainfull typhoon ever recorded- 2x that of the last typhoon. It even poured down all the way to Korea, causing minor annoyance, but not destruction.

In the Phillipines alone, you can see the flooding and the destruction caused by this force.

Flooding in the Phillipnes

Image via Wikipedia

Now, I’ll tell you a little bit about how it was formed. This typhoon was formed by an unnamed depression. The guys who were researching about this typhoon weren’t expecting it to become full-scale. BUT, the next day, the alarm was raised. This typhoon started to pick up speed, and was traveling at 65 km/h. That’s pretty fast for 24 hours. Then, the typhoon steadily increased speed until it was a full-fledged typhoon. It affected 11 million people in China and cost $1.4 billion USD for them. Sucks, doesn’t it? Well, the typhoon started on August 2, and dissipated (meaning wore itself out) on August 11. This carnage of destruction lasted for 9 days and left millions affected forever by this huge storm.