Typhoon Nesat, or Pedring and Northwest Pacific Tropical Cyclones

Typhoon Nesat, also called Pedring, is a Category 3 northwest Pacific typhoon hit the Philippines near Manilla and killed 43 people, including 17 children. 60,000 families have been displaced. Nesat also hit China at Hainan and is wreaking havoc in Vietnam's Quang Ninh province. For 2011, Nesat is very powerful, and is said to be worse than Ondoy of 2009. Let's look at other powerful northwest Pacific typhoons.

Typhoons are also called Pacific tropical cyclones. In the U.S. typhoons are called hurricanes. Many typhoons occur in the northwestern Pacific basin. The Philippines usually gets the brunt of the typhoon, but it may hit China, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan Indonesia and Oceania.

Typhoons have the same features as hurricanes: rain, strong winds and low internal atmospheric pressure. They are categorized on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to wind speeds and barometric readings, listed in millibars. Typhoons are named, like hurricanes, when they reach tropical storm status (75 mph sustained winds). Here are record-breaking northwest typhoons by the numbers.

* 300,000-500,000: The highest death toll in a typhoon or hurricane. The 1970 Bhola cyclone hit Bangladesh and Bengal in November. This area is not normally hit with tropical cyclones and is in the Indian Ocean zone. The storm was estimated at a Category 3 and caused great flooding. It wiped out entire villages. The Bhola cyclone is listed as number four worst natural disaster of all time (behind the China floods of 1887 and 1931 and the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake. These disasters wiped out 5.5 million people.

* 100,000: The number of people dead in Typhoon Nina, in 1975. Nina, a Category 4, hit China and Taiwan and caused the Banqiao Dam in China to collapse.

* 1964: The worst year for northwest typhoons. There were 39 tropical depressions, 13 tropical storms, 19 typhoons and 7 super typhoons. Over 1,800 people died.

* 870 millibars: Lowest internal pressure reading for a northwest typhoon was set by Typhoon Tip. This is lower than Atlantic basin Hurricane Wilma's 882 millibar reading, the lowest in Atlantic basin hurricane readings. A Category 5, Tip hit Guam and Japan with highest recorded wind speeds of 160 mph wind speeds. The highest wind speeds at landfall record was set by Hurricane Camille, in the Atlantic basin, with 190 mph winds in 1969.

* $10 billion: The highest damage estimate for a northwest Pacific tropical cyclone, Super Typhoon Mireille hit Japan in 1991. 66 lives were lost.

* 1991: The year of the deadliest typhoon in the Philippines. Tropical Storm Uring (Thelma) also hit Vietnam, in November. Estimates of 5,101-8,000 people were directly killed by Uring. Uring only made 75 mph winds but caused flooding and death.