Typhoon Haiyan Was Just the Start -- Prepare for an Ever Stormier Future

Aid agencies say Haiyan is likely to just be the overture.  The rising intensity of tropical storms, combined with their increasingly unseasonal timings, means rebuilding may be incomplete when the next super typhoon hits.  This would compound the disaster into a catastrophe.  Tariq Reibl, Oxfam's humanitarian response manager for the Philippines, says that climate change will mean destructive storms, disastrous enough in isolation, will increasingly occur in procession.

"You're looking at about 20 typhoons per year for the Philippines and as a whole those 20 are going to be more powerful.  And then, one or potentially two of those 20 in the future would be a super typhoon ... that is something that we didn't see 10 years ago," he says.

Oxfam's Haiyan recovery operation is currently costing £1m every week.  And yet, six months after the event, the rebuild is only just beginning.  Reibl says small but unseasonal storms have continually diverted resources away from the effort.

Typhoon Haiyan Was Just the Start -- Prepare for an Ever Stormier Future