The 1922 Shantou Typhoon was a devastating

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

that caused thousands of deaths in the Chinese city of

Shantou Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative ...

in August 1922. This total makes it one of the deadliest known typhoons in history.

Meteorological history

A tropical depression located near the

Caroline Island Caroline Island (also known as Caroline Atoll or Millennium Island) is the easternmost of several uninhabited coral atolls comprising the southern Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati. The atoll was first sighted by E ...

s was first spotted July 27. It moved slowly to the northwest, gradually intensifying. On July 31, it crossed northern

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

, and entered the northernmost part of the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

. It then intensified more and made

landfall Landfall is the event of a storm moving over land after being over water. More broadly, and in relation to human travel, it refers to 'the first land that is reached or seen at the end of a journey across the sea or through the air, or the fact ...

on the Chinese coast near the city of

late on August 2 or early on August 3. It quickly dissipated inland. The minimum known

central pressure Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1013.25 millibars, 7 ...

of this typhoon is . At one point, the winds were estimated to have a velocity of 100 mph.

Impact

Due to the typhoon passing through a then-lightly inhabited part of the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, no reports of significant impact were received. In Shantou, the typhoon caused a

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...

of at least 12 ft above normal. The rain was heavy, and left enough water to leave the land saturated for a few days. 933 Shantou was an unfortunate city, as around 5,000 people (out of a population of about 65,000) perished in the storm. Some nearby villages were totally destroyed. Several ships near the coast were totally wrecked. Other ones were blown as far as two miles inland. The area around the city had around another 50,000 casualties. The total death toll was above 60,000, and may have been higher than 100,000. The 50,000 to 100,000 deaths–100,000+ deaths caused by this typhoon make it one of the deadliest

s in the western north Pacific Ocean. The other typhoons with comparable death totals include an unnamed typhoon that hit

Haiphong Haiphong ( vi, Hải Phòng, ), or Hải Phòng, is a major industrial city and the third-largest in Vietnam. Hai Phong is also the center of technology, economy, culture, medicine, education, science and trade in the Red River delta. Haiphong wa ...

in 1881, 1975's Typhoon Nina, and another unnamed typhoon that hit somewhere in China in 1912.

References

{{reflist

External links

Approximate storm path

Christmas typhoon of 1918
Pre-1940 Pacific typhoon seasons 1922 Shantou Shantou

1922 Shantou July 1922 events August 1922 events 1922 meteorology