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With the expected entry of megastorm Haiyan (Local name: Yolanda) in the Philippine area of responsibility by Thursday night or Friday morning, the Philippines will once more reaffirm its unfortunate title of natural calamity capital of the world.

It is on record that this southeast Asian country holds the record for the number of natural calamities to hit the archipelago yearly. Name it, the country has experienced it - earthquakes, floods, mega typhoons. The only exceptions probably are tornadoes, tsunamis and snowstorms.

But by sheer number, it is tops. In typhoons alone, an average of 20 hit the country yearly, so that its old 22 alphabet letters were usually not enough to name the storms locally that sometimes before the year ends, the storm's name already begins with either the letters A, B or K.

Yolanda, which is packing winds of 134 mph and gusts of 155 mph is expected to affect 14 million Filipinos, including those residing in the Philippine provinces of Cebu and Bohol who were devastated in October by a magnitude 7 tremor.

It would be the 24th storm to hit the country.

Yolanda brings to mind, for those who are in the 50s and above, a superstorm that hit the Philippines on Nov 14, 1970 - Yoling. Going by Philippine tradition of having pet or nickname, a woman with the first name Yolanda would have a nickname of Yolly if she were a city girl and Yoling if she were a country lass.

That trivia said, the parallelism of the two mega typhoons makes one wonder if Yolanda is the youngest daughter of Yoling, or perhaps eldest granddaughter. Both have the 2nd week of November as their hit dates.

Yoling, whose international name is Patsy, battered the Philippines for 5 days and then moved to wreak havoc in Vietnam. It killed 106 people and caused more than 30,000 to become homeless. The American vessel USS President Taft separated from its anchor and collided with the Greek ship Alikimon in Manila Bay.

Until 2009, Yoling held the record for being the deadliest tropical cyclone to hit the Philippines. But its record was replaced by tropical storm Ketsana (local name: Ondoy), one of the five mega typhoons that battered the Philippines in the past five years.

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Names of super destructive typhoons that hit the Philippines are retired, hence Yoling is no longer used. Hopefully, Yolanda would also one day be retired as a typhoon name.

Here are five recent typhoons that has caused so much destruction and grief to Filipinos in recent memory.

  • Bopha/Pablo (Dec 2-9, 2012) - Destroyed $1.04 billion worth of properties and crops; killed 1,146 people

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  • Washi/Sendong (Dec 16-17, 2011) - Killed 1,268 people

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  • Parma/Pepeng (Oct 2-10, 2009) - Destroyed $608 million worth of properties and crops.

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  • Ketsana/Ondoy (Sept 25-27, 2009) - Destroyed $244 million worth of properties; Flooded Metro Manila for one week; Killed at least 464 people
  • Fengshen/Frank (June 20-23, 2008) - Destroyed $301 million worth of properties and crops; Killed 1,410 people

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