It's no more difficult to design against typhoons than it is to design against hurricanes. This looks like a classic example of soil erosion failure. They should have had a better seawall, to protect all those structures built along the edge of the river.
Typhoon and Hurricanes are both Tropical Cyclones. Typhoon is in the name used commonly in the Western Pacific. Hurricane is commonly used in the Atlantic.
Typhoon comes from the Japanese language, which is probably used in the western pacific. Ty meaning great or big and phoon ('fun') meaning wind. I believe the term is used both in the southern hemisphere and nothern hemisphere.
Saw this mentioned on 'Clash of the Titans' on the History channel that Typhoon was originated from the Greek God Typhon. (I know wikipedia sucks but it was a quick reference)
I might try to summarise the names given to tropical storms. Tropical cyclones originate in the doldrums, either side of the equator. They are normally called hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, typhoons in the western Pacific and northern Indian above the equator, and tropical cyclones in the western Pacific and Indian below the equator. The direction of rotation is counterclockwise in the north, clockwise in the south, regardless of what the storm is called.
Anybody know why there don't seem to be tropical cyclones in the south Atlantic?
Only reason I remember is this is often used as an argument for codes to change the history approach. This is often combined with discussions about down thrusts from storms not being handles by the codes very well either.