Super typhoon Ragasa, the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone this year, made landfall in southern China on Wednesday, 24 September, killing and injuring people as well as leaving massive destruction in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Hong Kong along the way.
This super typhoon started in the western Pacific, gaining strength with the warming sea before it became a category 5 typhoon – the highest classification on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale – with wind speeds of 260 km/h.
Should extreme weather events like super typhoon Ragasa still be considered just “a natural event” when science clearly shows that human-aggravated climate warming has been and continues to add fuel to the fire? More than enough data proves that our dependence on fossil fuels is directly responsible for intensified extreme weather events.
The few images of the super typhoon Ragasa below don’t capture the devastation in full, but they do testify that the wrath of nature has full power to destroy so much that’s dear to us unless we collectively act to make systemic changes and put people before profits.
