One of the strongest typhoons on record has blasted the Philippines. The storm crashed through the central islands of the archipelago on its way back out to sea. Contact has been lost with many of the affected areas, so it is unclear how many people have been killed or injured, but the damage is likely to be severe.
Typhoon Haiyan is probably the strongest recorded typhoon ever to make landfall, according to meteorologist Jeff Masters of US-based company Weather Underground. The US navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center says Haiyan is producing sustained winds of 269 kilometres per hour, with gusts as strong as 324 km/h.
A few typhoons in the 1960s were thought to have had stronger winds, but they have since been downgraded after it emerged that the measurements were unreliable.
Haiyan formed in the central Pacific earlier this week and headed west. It intensified into a "super typhoon" on 6 November, and struck the Philippines last night as a category 5 storm, threatening the second-largest city, Cebu.
According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, Haiyan has now moved out to sea and is heading west-north-west, towards the Indochina peninsula and south-west China.
The storm is expected to gradually weaken to category 4 over the sea before making landfall in Vietnam over the weekend.
Vietnam's National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting has issued a typhoon warning for most of the country, while the China Meteorological Agency has launched a level 3 emergency response.
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