The Super Typhoon Haiyan has affect­ed the Philip­pines, trig­ger­ing flooding,
destroy­ing build­ings and caus­ing mil­lions of peo­ple to take shelter. 

Ramon Anquilan DU1UGZ of the Philip­pines Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion (PARA)
reports that the typhoon made land­fall at about 4.40am local time today in
Guian Estern Samar, about 600 kilo­me­tres south­east of Mani­la, and neighbouring
provinces are affected. 

Then it made sec­ond land­fall over Dulag-Tolosa, Leyte with max­i­mum sustained
winds of 235 kilo­me­tres per hour near the cen­tre and gust­ing up to 275 kph. 

Sad­ly the area of Bohol and Cebu, which suf­fered from the 7.2 mag­ni­tude earthquake
in Octo­ber, are also along the typhoon’s path. Bohol was the epi­cen­tre of
the earth­quake that killed 222 peo­ple, where at least 5,000 sur­vivors still
liv­ing in tents.
 
There is no pow­er in many areas includ­ing Mas­bate, Ticao Island, Southern
Sor­so­gon, Romblon, North­ern Samar, East­ern Samar, Samar, Leyte, Southern
Leyte, Bili­ran, North­ern Cebu, Cebu City, Ban­tayan, Camotes Islands, Northern
Negros Occi­den­tal, Capiz, Aklan, Antique, Iloi­lo, Guimaras and Dina­gat Province. 

Ramon DU1UGZ said, “HERO (Ham Emer­gency Radio Oper­a­tor) have report­ed that
those along the typhoon path have shut down their radios as they wait out
for it to pass. In a few hours, we feel we should be hear­ing them again.” 

Already there have been some 270 post­ings of emer­gency traf­fic. More reports
are expect­ed. Ear­li­er PARA called for the fre­quen­cies of 7.095 and 144.740
to be kept clear for emer­gency traffic.
 
Typhoon Haiyan, the world’s strongest this year, and some reports make it
poten­tial­ly one of the most intense recorded. 

The Philip­pines is bat­tered by an aver­age of 20 major storms or typhoons
each year. Typhoon Bopha left about 2,000 peo­ple dead or miss­ing on Mindanao
Island in Decem­ber 2012. 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.