Top 10 Philippines’ deadliest storms

Typhoon Ruby (international name Hagupit) was churning across the Philippines yesterday, the latest in a never-ending series of often deadly storms that plague the Southeast Asian archipelago.

With more than 7,100 islands, the country is hit by an average of 20 typhoons or tropical storms each year.

The storms are created above the warmer waters of the Pacific Ocean near the equator, and the Philippines’ islands are often the first major landmass they hit as they move northwest.

The following are the 10 deadliest typhoons on record in the Philippines:

1. Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), the strongest storm ever recorded on land, de- stroyed entire towns across the Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013. When the government stopped its count months later, more than 7,350 people were listed as dead or missing.
2. Tropical Storm Uring (Thelma) unleashed flash floods in the city of Ormoc, Leyte on Nov. 15, 1991, killing more than 5,100.
3. Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) smashed into the Davao provinces on Dec. 3, 2012. Rarely hit by major storms, the unprepared region suffers about 1,900 people dead or missing.
4. Typhoon Ruping (Ike) hit the Visayas on Aug. 31, 1984, killing 1,363 people.
5. Typhoon Sendong (Washi) hit the north- ern part of Mindanao on Dec. 16, 2011, killing at least 1,080 people.
6. Floods and landslides unleashed by Typhoon Trix killed 995 people in the Bicol Region on Oct. 16, 1952.
7. Typhoon Yoyong (Amy) raked across the central islands in December 1951, with floods, landslides and a massive storm surge killing 991 people.
8. Typhoon Sisang (Nina) hit Legazpi City of Legaspi on Nov. 25, 1987, triggering giant storm surges and unleashing mudslides down Mayon volcano that claimed 979 lives.
9. Typhoon Frank (Fengshen) tracked an erratic and destructive path across the central islands and nearby areas on June 20, 2008, killing 938 people, including a considerable number aboard an inter-island ship that failed to take shelter.
10. Typhoon Rosing (Angela), with gusts of up to 260 kilometers an hour, caused carnage in Bicol and later Manila on Nov. 2, 1995, kill- ing 936 people.

[IMAGES] Effects of ‘Ruby’ in Tacloban

[WATCH] Korina Sanchez’s Controversial Typhoon Ruby Comment in TV Patrol