Typhoon Bopha, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Pablo, was the strongest tropical cyclone on record to ever affect the southern Filipino island of Mindanao, making landfall as a Category 5 super typhoon with winds of 175 mph (280 km/h).[1] The twenty-fourth tropical storm, along with being the fourth and final super typhoon of the 2012 Pacific Typhoon season, Bopha originated unusually close to the equator, becoming the second-most southerly Category 5 super typhoon, reaching a minimum latitude of 7.4°N on December 3, 2012, as only Typhoon Louise-Marge of 1964 came closer to the equator at this strength, at 7.3°N.[1] After first landfalling in Palau, where it destroyed houses, disrupted communications and caused power outages, flooding and uprooted trees, Bopha made landfall late on December 3 on Mindanao, an island that had been devastated by the much weaker Tropical Storm Washi in December 2011.[2][3] The storm caused widespread destruction on Mindanao, leaving thousands of people homeless and killing 1901 people.[4][5][6] After hitting Davao Oriental and Davao de Oro provinces, Bopha shifted through the southern and central regions of Mindanao, cutting power to two provinces and triggering landslides. More than 170,000 people fled to evacuation centers, as the system moved to the South China Sea west of the Palawan island province, eventually dissipating on December 9.
