On 8 November 2013, Supertyphoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) struck and severely damaged Tacloban and nearby geography in Eastern Visayas. Deemed the strongest typhoon ever to fall on land, it also caused the deaths of more than 6,000 people, mostly due to the accompanying storm surges. Apart from describing some illustrative impact of Yolanda and its aftermath, this paper provides a historical context of key natural disasters in Eastern Visayas, with comparative focus on the 1897 typhoon that Yolanda repeated 116 years later. The paper argues that disasters in the region are both historical processes and sequential events and highlights some parallel patterns of these disasters in 1897 and 2013, respectively.
ISSN 0117-2840 (Print)
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