At least 116 people are now known to have died, with many more still missing, after Typhoon Kalmaegi swept across the central Philippines on Tuesday 4 November 2025. The majority of the deaths occurred in the city of Cebu, and surrounding metropolitan area, with 35 people having apparently drowned in a single incident in the town of Liloan, with 76 people having died in the greater metropolitan area, despite over 400 000 being evacuated from areas deemed to be at risk ahead of the storm. On Mindanao Island a military helicopter taking part in relief efforts crashed during the storm, leading to the deaths of all six crewmembers.
On Negros Island at least 12 people have died and 12 more are still missing after heavy rains triggered a lahar, which buried a number of homes in Canlaon City. Lahars are ash-laden flash floods associated with volcanoes. They can be caused directly by volcanic eruptions, for example when hot lava encounters a glacial lake rapidly destroying an ice dam, but are also common in areas of high seasonal rainfall, where ash deposits from a volcano can build up during the dry season, creating dams on seasonal waterways, which temporarily halt the flow of water, then give way rapidly leading to dramatic flash floods. The Negtos lahar was caused by heavy rains associated with Typhoon Kalmaegi falling onto unconsolidated ash from an eruption on Mount Kanloan last year.
Tropical storms are caused by the warming effect of the Sun over tropical seas. As the air warms it expands, causing a drop in air pressure, and rises, causing air from outside the area to rush in to replace it. If this happens over a sufficiently wide area, then the inrushing winds will be affected by centrifugal forces caused by the Earth's rotation (the Coriolis effect). This means that winds will be deflected clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere, eventually creating a large, rotating Tropical Storm. They have different names in different parts of the world, with those in the northwest Pacific being referred to as typhoons.
Despite the obvious danger of winds of this speed, which can physically blow people, and other large objects, away as well as damaging buildings and uprooting trees, the real danger from these storms comes from the flooding they bring. Each drop millibar drop in air-pressure leads to an approximate 1 cm rise in sea level, with big tropical storms capable of causing a storm surge of several meters. This is always accompanied by heavy rainfall, since warm air over the ocean leads to evaporation of sea water, which is then carried with the storm. These combined often lead to catastrophic flooding in areas hit by tropical storms.
Typhoon Kalmaegi, known as Typhoon Tino in the Philippines, deposited 183 mm of rain onto Cebu Island in the 24 hours before making landfall. When it arrived, it brought with it sustained winds of more than 130 km per hour, with gusts exceeding 180 km per hour. Storms such as this are becoming more frequent due to global warming which is warming the oceans faster than the land, with the Philippines, which typically suffers about 20 storms per year, having been hit by twelve major storms since the typhoon season began in June this year: Tropical Storm Wutip in June, Typhoon Danas, Severe Tropical Storm Wipha, and Severe Tropical Storm Co-May in July, Tropical Depression Fabian and Typhoon Kajiki in August, Tropical Storm Mita, Typhoon Ragasa, and Typhoon Bualoi in September, and Typhoon Matmo, Severe Tropical Storm Fengshen, and Tropical Depression Salome in October. Furthermore, it is thought likely that a system currently known as Tropical Depression Thirty Two, which is currently crossing the central Pacific, will increase in strength and become a Typhoon-strength storm before making landfall in the Philippines this weekend.
As well as leading to larger and more frequent storms, warmer seas can enable them to change course rapidly, making it harder to predict where and when they will make landfall. However, this does not appear to have been the issue in the Philippines this week, where over half a million people were evacuated in advance from areas considered vulnerable to the storm. Instead, the storm has contributed to a growing corruption scandal in the country, with approximately 26.6 billion Philippine Pesos (about US$452 million) having been spent on flood defences which were found to be insufficient, incomplete, or simply absent as the storm approached.
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