Typhoon Vamco hit Vietnam with 150 mph winds yesterday after killing at least 80 people and submerging entire towns in the Philippines. Vamco was the fifth major storm to hit the Philippines, where it is known as Ulysses, in the last month and a half, and at least the seventh to hit Vietnam. Vietnamese officials have already evacuated 650,000 people from coastal areas and warned heavy rains could trigger landslides as the storm moves inland. In Vietnam more than 100 people were killed and about 400,000 homes destroyed in October, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The storms also washed away roads and bridges and destroyed food supplies and crops. Climate change increases extreme rainfall because warmer air holds more water vapor and can therefore dump more water when it rains. “This is the worst flooding that we had in the last 45 years,” Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba told Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte during a briefing, Reuters reported. “We see that it is worsening every year.” (The New Humanitarian, Reuters, CNN, BBC; Al Jazeera, Washington Post $, Climate Signals Background: Extreme precipitation increase, Intense cyclone, hurricane, typhoon frequency increase)