1881 Haiphong typhoon - the deadliest typhoon in the Philippines?

[Hurricanehink]

For a while, Wikipedia listed the 1881 Haiphong typhoon as one of the deadliest storms ever, with 300,000 deaths related to it. Researchers in the 2010s realized that the death toll was most likely a translation error, as the city, Haiphong, Vietnam, had a population of less than 18,000. And so, the death toll was lowered to 3,000 in Vietnam, based on the original source.

However, there appears to be another error, as Wikipedia also lists the storm as being the deadliest on record in the Philippines, with a death toll of 20,000. I have one source I found that loosely backs it up - from 2014, The Philippines’ Typhoon Alley: The Historic Bagyos of the Philippines and Their Impact. It writes:

The deadliest tropical cyclone on record to hit the Philippines was believed during September 1881. Known as the Haiphong typhoon, the disturbance hit Central Luzon was estimated to have killed up to 20,000 people as it passed over the country September 27, 1881.

I think this death toll of 20,000 is a misrepresentation of a USAID source from 1979 - https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAY550.pdf - which writes:

September 27-October 6 ­ typhoon moved WNW through Camarines, Tayabas and Batangas, causing much destruction; 20,000 killed in Tonking in same storm from high wave

In this source, Tonking refers to the region of northern Vietnam. So I'm a bit stuck. I emailed PAGASA, but they didn't get back to me. I opened up a discussion on Wikipedia, but there hasn't been much interest. Does anyone know if there was a particularly deadly typhoon in September 1881 in the Philippines? I have the storm listed in Wikipedia's article on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_deadliest_tropical_cyclones - but I didn't want to add the 20,000, because I don't know if that was the case. I have references to other deadly Philippine typhoons before 1900, but none with a death toll greater than Haiyan in 2013, which appears to be the real deadliest storm in the Philippines.

[Foxfires]

For a while, Wikipedia listed the 1881 Haiphong typhoon as one of the deadliest storms ever, with 300,000 deaths related to it. Researchers in the 2010s realized that the death toll was most likely a translation error, as the city, Haiphong, Vietnam, had a population of less than 18,000. And so, the death toll was lowered to 3,000 in Vietnam, based on the original source.

However, there appears to be another error, as Wikipedia also lists the storm as being the deadliest on record in the Philippines, with a death toll of 20,000. I have one source I found that loosely backs it up - from 2014, The Philippines’ Typhoon Alley: The Historic Bagyos of the Philippines and Their Impact. It writes:

The deadliest tropical cyclone on record to hit the Philippines was believed during September 1881. Known as the Haiphong typhoon, the disturbance hit Central Luzon was estimated to have killed up to 20,000 people as it passed over the country September 27, 1881.

I think this death toll of 20,000 is a misrepresentation of a USAID source from 1979 - https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAY550.pdf - which writes:

September 27-October 6 ­ typhoon moved WNW through Camarines, Tayabas and Batangas, causing much destruction; 20,000 killed in Tonking in same storm from high wave

In this source, Tonking refers to the region of northern Vietnam. So I'm a bit stuck. I emailed PAGASA, but they didn't get back to me. I opened up a discussion on Wikipedia, but there hasn't been much interest. Does anyone know if there was a particularly deadly typhoon in September 1881 in the Philippines? I have the storm listed in Wikipedia's article on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_deadliest_tropical_cyclones - but I didn't want to add the 20,000, because I don't know if that was the case. I have references to other deadly Philippine typhoons before 1900, but none with a death toll greater than Haiyan in 2013, which appears to be the real deadliest storm in the Philippines.

There's apparently another source.

On Wikipedia's Haiphong Typhoon article, there is a list of deadliest Philippine typhoons.



The ref for the Haiphong typhoon links to an archived version of an infographic by Project NOAH, and to save you the effort of looking for the Haiphong Typhoon's section:



Instead of Sep 27 like on the Wiki article, the typhoon is listed to have occurred from Sep 21 - Oct 6, however.

I've tried opening the original version but it doesn't load for me unfortunately. Guess that's what Web Archive is for. Hope this helped? I can't find anything else that states 20 000 deaths.

[Hurricanehink]

Thanks Foxfires, that source isn't too encouraging. I'm worried at this point that the wrong death toll has been on Wikipedia for so long that it almost falls under the category of citogenesis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents - that is, reliable sources that refer to Wikipedia, even though the original Wikipedia entry might not have been entirely accurate.

[doomhaMwx]

It looks like that 20,000 figure comes from the writings of the Spanish Jesuit Miguel Selga, also once a director of the Manila Observatory. In 1935, he published a document about past typhoons. However, he did not explicitly mention that these deaths were from the Philippines or just from the country alone. It's highly probable that the 20,000 was an accumulated estimate of the deaths from the Philippines, Vietnam, and maybe even southern China. So, it's problematic calling the Haiphong Typhoon the "deadliest typhoon in the Philippines."

1881/9/27: ‘A typhoon appeared ESE of Manila and advanced to WNW through
Camarines, Tayabas and Batangas provinces, doing much damage. In the China Sea,
it gained tremendous development, wrecked some steamers and invaded Tongking
with a high wave, which caused as much destruction as the fury of the wind.
Twenty thousand human corpses were recovered after the storm. The barometric
minimum on the steamer Fleurs Castle at about 15 ºN and 113 ºE was 717.50mm
(approx. 956 hPa).’

Reading this account actually makes it sound like most of the deaths were from Vietnam and/or southern China rather than the Philippines.

Source: https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/34627/ ... 2libre.pdf