It’s been a powerful season for hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons but if experts are correct Super Typhoon Soudelor could take the crown.
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THIS is now officially the world’s biggest category 5 typhoon.
The typhoon sustained winds of around 170 kilometres an hour causing widespread damage in Saipan on Sunday night.
Saipan’s acting governor, Ralph DLG Torres, declared “a state of disaster and significant emergency”.
Super Typhoon Soudelor on Monday.
Damage was “extensive” across the island and there had been significant damage to public infrastructure, he said.
The super typhoon’s trail of destruction can be seen in the above video, at what appears to be a resort on Saipan Island – the largest and most-populated of the Northern Marianas Islands.
A massive storm, the strongest yet this year is moving across the western Pacific bringing fear in residents in its path. Super Typhoon Soudelor is the strongest storm of 2015 and one of the strongest storms ever seen.
The bureau could not confirm if the center of the typhoon will make landfall in northeastern Taiwan as its present course might suggest, saying it was too early to determine what path the storm will follow in the coming days. Pic: Japan Meteorological Agency.
It said Soudelor would continue to intensify as it swept across open water for the next 24 hours before starting to weaken.
Wu expected Soudelor to gain strength as it approaches Taiwan because of its weak vertical wind shear – a measure of the difference in wind speeds at different heights of the storm.
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In addition to the fatalities in Vanuatu, about 75,000 people needed emergency shelter after their homes were destroyed and nearly all food crops were wiped out.
