They may have different names according to the region they hit, but typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones are all violent tropical storms that can generate 10 times as much energy as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Typhoon is the Asian term for a low-pressure system that is called a hurricane in the Atlantic and north-east Pacific and a cyclone in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
But meteorologists use the term "tropical cyclone" when talking generally about these immensely powerful natural phenomena, which are divided into five categories according to the maximum sustained wind force and the scale of the potential damage they can inflict.
Typhoon Hagupit, which roared in from the Pacific Ocean and lashed eastern Philippines with windgusts of 210 kilometres (130 miles) an hour, is the most powerful storm to hit the Southeast Asian country this year. Hagupit comes a year after Super Typhoon Haiyan devastated large swathes of the archipelago, claiming more than 7,350 lives. Every year, some 20 super storms or typhoons hit the Philippines, of the 80 or so that develop above tropical waters annually.
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