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Holy shit!

This is absolutely insane!

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Zdenek's English Podcast.

My name is Denec, as you know, and today I'm recording a really interesting one for you.

Let me just get outside of the hotel lobby and start talking to you in a normal way.

So, guys, this episode will be very interesting because I'm going to share with you my experience of a typhoon.

That's right.

Two days ago...

there was a typhoon here in Vietnam that's where I'm living at the moment and it left a trail of destruction I think you will be able to see some of it here it's two days ago so basically a lot of it has already been cleaned up I mean the Vietnamese people they are really fast in dealing with this but this is the aftermath whatever you will see today is the aftermath it's a little bit less than two days ago that's when it happens and we still don't have power we have lost power as a result of this because a lot of electric poles have been toppled and the power has been lost i'm going to walk to the beach and show you how the beach have suffered how the this massive storm has impacted the beach here but I also the main I guess the main part of this episode will be me describing to you the experience of someone who comes from Central Europe I'm from the Czech Republic as you guys probably know and I will tell you what it was like for me basically how I was scared and all that right so if you stick around you will learn more about this unbelievable i would call it an unbelievable and fascinating experience i'm talking about it in an exciting way but to be honest it was really scary and also my condolences to the people that lost their lives homes or family like family members or something like that it really didn't happen much here in Vietnam but there were some casualties especially in Indonesia not Indonesia sorry in the Philippines yes that's right because this typhoon which is called Kalmeiji something along those lines was really brutal it was really brutal and it first came to the philippines about five or six days ago i don't know exactly and it ravaged the country destroyed thousands of homes and killed as far as i know 188 people which is incredible and then it made its way to vietnam where i am And we knew about this because meteorologists, they always have very precise information about this.

They can forecast the movements of these massive, massive typhoons.

By the way, guys, I have to explain something to you.

As I'm walking...

towards the beach.

I can see that they have already been dealing with this sand situation on the road.

You'll be able to see it behind me because the storm brought a lot of sand to the roads.

The beach is larger than it's supposed to be.

There shouldn't be this many people here.

Sorry, people.

There shouldn't be this much sand.

The sand is supposed to be only on this side, but not there.

and this this was all caused by the storm and you will see the trail of destruction it has left here on the beach the most i would say because and this is two days ago it was much worse yesterday should have recorded it yesterday really but anyway i would like to talk to you about how it all started so as i said it it came from indonesia and It was on Thursday, right?

Thursday afternoon.

No, actually, in the morning, the wind started picking up, maybe at 5 o 'clock or so.

And because I sleep in the morning, I actually myself woke up at 1 p .m.

And the wind was already pretty strong.

But it was nothing, nothing compared to what was yet to come, to be honest.

I had to teach a lesson at about 3 o 'clock, at about 3 p .m.

And by the time I finished the lesson, I was already a little bit worried about what was going to happen.

As I told you, everybody knew about this, but you kind of never know how strong the wind is until it really arrives.

So people were prepared.

Everybody had been informed by the government.

by the authorities that they should stay at home they should get some water right in case some food inside in case this creates some disruptions like the power outage that really happened in the end and all that so you know i i taught my lesson and during this lesson i was already uh going to the I have like a studio apartment in this actually large building behind me.

You can see it.

It's a high -rise building on the 26th floor.

And so I was there teaching my lesson in my apartment.

And I have this sliding door which takes me to the balcony.

And obviously I closed the door as much as I could.

It's made of like...

tempered glass you know there's like tempered glass so i was hoping it would last but as i was teaching this lesson i could i could hear the wind battering on that on that sliding door or window or what have you and it was it was quite quite an experience my student could see me getting worried throughout the lesson because and it was gradually getting worse yeah it's like imagine the wind is picking up its speed as you're getting to the center of the of the typhoon or as the typhoon is approaching with its center because that was exactly that was exactly what was happening here so typhoon is a type of wind it's a sorry it's a type of storm which has its center and around this center you have these twisting winds that create a massive sort of structure of winds which twist and twirl in a crazy way around this center and the whole object so to speak is like moves right it moves in a direction and it lasts forever several days it's created on the ocean or in the ocean because of warm temperature of the ocean and then it's I'm not an expert you can google it all but it collides with the colder temperature in the air or something and then it creates this atmosphere which basically it's like a collision of temperatures right and then it does it creates this low pressure object which is the eye of the of the hurricane or typhoon actually hurricane typhoon some people call it cyclone is the same thing the same type of phenomenon and it just has a different name based on the location where it appears for example hurricanes appear in the Atlantic Ocean like Caribbean around the USA whereas typhoons here it's like in the Pacific Ocean right and then you have cyclones I think that that one is used in Australia as far as I know but it's it's tropical cyclones but it's the same thing so I'm talking about a typhoon mainly here and this one was called typhoon Kalmegi you can google it if you don't believe me and yeah so this typhoon was coming closer and closer and so i finished my lesson and about 15 minutes later no power i lost power completely so i was not able to to like switch on the lights it started getting dark because yeah it was 5 p .m at 5 p .m it slowly starts getting dark so we lost we lost power and fortunately there was some power inside the building because i live in that i told you in that high -rise building in the hotel room it's like a hotel slash apartment building so i'm renting an apartment there right and um so inside that they have a power generator and that powers the the lights inside the the building and also the lifts the elevators and also downstairs people can charge their phone so i'm not completely without power but i cannot like use uh electricity i can't use my fridge i cannot use my cooker uh i cannot i cannot do much really inside my apartment i have to charge my phone downstairs bring it upstairs all that yeah so it was getting worse and worse the wind was really strong like the the uh especially the sort of the loudness yeah the how loud it was the noise, right?

It was so strong because it was obviously battering.

Holy shit!

This is absolutely insane!

Oh my goodness!

When is it gonna end?

I was praying not literally because I'm not religious but metaphorically I was praying praying it wouldn't break the tempered glass and you never you never really know because I've never been in a hurricane and yeah and then it was five o 'clock and that was just incredible at one point I thought oh I had a brilliant idea let's record let's record a short video for my sister to show her and her children what it's like to be to be trapped inside during a hurricane right and so I tried to open the the sliding door but I couldn't do it there was so much pressure there that I was unable to actually open the sliding door and so I put the phone down on my bed in order to use both of my hands because I was doing it with one hand wasn't successful and I managed to do it however it was a bad idea because suddenly obviously there was a lot of draft and a lot of wind got inside and and also rain because during this hurricane it also brings some rainfall right and so I realized it it had been a mistake I realized I'd made a mistake and I tried to close the door and it couldn't do it.

Oh my god.

So I managed to close the sliding door.

However, it was still leaking.

Like water was getting from underneath the sliding door.

I don't know what, how, but basically I was stupid in trying to do anything like that.

And so it was all recorded in that video as well for my sister.

And in the end, I had to put some towels to close that little gap through which the water was getting in.

It was all so strong.

The wind was so strong and powerful.

Unbelievable.

This thing, guys, it's scary.

Really scary.

But at the same time, it's kind of beautiful.

Because it's nature, right?

It's fascinating how strong, powerful, fierce.

what's the word for it there's another word i'm looking for but it's just it's incredible what it can do and how you have to be careful not to mess with it right this is the scariest day of my life there's a hurricane raging outside the wind is super super strong and As you can see, I saw a lightning flashing over there.

There's a heavy rainfall outside and the strength of the wind is just insane.

Literally, my apartment is shaking.

It's almost like an earthquake.

And I closed my sort of windows.

This is like my balcony window.

but i i didn't manage to close it completely there's like a narrow gap and it's bringing a lot of air in and some rain too but i don't think i can do anything about it right now so it's quite stressful stressful situation a lot of people are scared and praying that we survive this i Close the door and still it was still getting stronger.

We were we were still not in the in that worst situation yet and That was the time when I genuinely started to get a little bit scared I have to be honest with you I was alone inside that apartment someone who has never experienced anything like this before Yes, there are some there were some messages from people telling me what i should do maybe some advice from from the vietnam authorities like all that but you never really know until until it arrives right and i already knew what it had done in the philippines so as it was sweeping towards towards my city of winyon i was there huddled now i i moved Into the kitchen area because I have a studio so I didn't want to be anywhere near the sliding door because that's where the most of the sound was coming from obviously because it was battering battering that window and Making this terrible noise it was like gusts like there was very strong gusts right so the wind is one thing it had a constant speed but the gusts i think they were going maybe over 150 kilometers per mile so it was really for per hour maybe i don't know if it's the imperial measurement or the metric measurements i have no idea but yeah you can all google it if you want to know the precise data because that's not what what i'm here for i'm here for giving you this account like sharing this experience with you that's that's my job here today i guess and um and yeah so i was there huddled sitting on my chair the i the power had been had been gone for a long time now even the the operator i'm using vietel which is one of i think the best one here in vietnam the operators stopped like there was no signal no signal right so i couldn't really send any more messages anymore it was just like darkness right it was very dark obviously during this no lightning not but i saw maybe two light flashes of lightning no thunder it was just about the wind and a lot of rain but the wind was the main thing and So I was just sitting on the chair.

I couldn't do anything.

I couldn't get out of the apartment because I know if I tried to open the window to get maybe like in the corridor, right, or even go downstairs, it would be probably impossible because of the pressure, right?

Because, yes, there is a sliding door, but I think there was some tiny gaps.

through which the air was coming anyway so there was a lot of pressure so I wouldn't be even able to open that door I think at that point yeah so all I could do was just play a game and pray it would end soon so I played like an offline game that I had installed on my phone it's called Solitaire I know I don't know maybe you know it it's it's an old card game and anyway it's not important what's more important is that at some point when it was really when i almost couldn't handle the noise and the stress it was it was really stressful it stopped suddenly it stopped out of like out of nowhere almost out of the blue literally out of the blue like it stopped and you're like what the hell is it over why is it so sudden all of us it happened all of a sudden so i was like oh but that was fast so Everybody okay?

I looked around.

I couldn't believe it that it stopped.

So I went down.

One of the elevators was working as well, which I thought I would have to go 26 floors, go by stairs, right?

I thought I would have to go down.

But I didn't.

One of the elevators was working.

It was a bit scary to go in because I thought like, oh, what if the wind has damaged the elevator?

But it's in the middle of the building, so obviously it didn't.

But I went down and there were people downstairs who were, you know, sort of, you could see their worried faces and they were charging their phones there because, as I told you, the hotel had its power, even though.

the power in the whole city had been gone by this time but also i was able to see through the main entrance they also have some sliding door there the main entrance there was like a narrow they left a narrow gap and a wooden bar across it hi hi the vietnamese people they really want to be in the video saying hi to me there's some boys playing in the sand you can see like some trees are uprooted here yeah this is this is what happens when a storm like this comes and you can see a lot of debris on the beach right and these boys of course it's the weekend as well and even if it wasn't the weekend they would have a holiday now because of the storm but yeah just going back to the sudden and unexpected calmness yeah and and also suddenly it was so much warmer like you could feel like maybe five six seven degrees warmer it almost felt like spring was coming really like this cool feeling of oh it's all over it's like this relief and the stress can you imagine so much stress and suddenly it's all over but it came out of nowhere out like unexpectedly so i saw that Gab, I wanted to get out, right?

I was like, yeah, let me have a look what had happened here.

Let me check the impact of the storm to see if everybody's okay.

And I was in this mood like, maybe I could help people here, right?

Yeah, I was trying to be helpful, but they said, the staff, the hotel staff said, no, you cannot go out.

I was like, okay, I suppose the storm is still there, but I couldn't see.

i couldn't feel any wind it was the sky was like clearer clearly and so i was a bit surprised like they wouldn't let me out then i sent a message to my friend and she told me oh my god zdenek don't be fooled the storm is not over we are currently in the eye of the hurricane we're in the eye in the center of it and i don't know how much you know about it but hurricanes and typhoons same thing as i said um basically they have the it's center and it's called the eye it sounds a little bit like the lord of the rings right or something like that some sort of fantasy or science fiction movie but it's it's true and the eye is the calm part of the storm and it's right in the center and uh it can be about 20 kilometers in diameter so this this calm it's like loud before the storm like you could say like this calm period it it actually lasted for about 40 minutes long time but it's it was just such an incredible feeling such such an amazing experience also now i understood from from the message that my friend sent me that we are just in the middle of the storm and it's it's gonna get worse again because Basically, the eye was passing right through my city.

So we were right in the middle of it, right in the thick of it.

And that could only mean one thing, that as it was moving away, we would have to get out of the eye again and into the storm.

Actually, there's a loud digger.

I think they are trying to clean the road.

they get getting the sand out of the road basically right because the waves got like four four five six meters high here because of the storm as a result so it brought a lot of it flooded the the beach right and it brought a lot of a lot of sand as i said so um yeah we were in the eye of the storm and that was just that was just incredible guys that was unbelievable and so what happens is if you study hurricanes or if you read something about it watch videos you can find a lot of stuff online you will learn that around the eye which is like it's it's like a ring right it's it's a ring and it's called it's called the wall of the eye and the wall of the eye is where the most powerful storms are with the most powerful winds are and they form there it's like the engine of the whole hurricane of the whole structure and um basically that's what you have to cross like you have to to get out of that eye you have to go through that so again once again it it all happened like really suddenly but at first i went up right and i went up to my apartment to get some water have something like a quick snack and um the plan was that i would go down down this time i didn't want to stay alone in my room i thought i thought i've had enough of that uh it was quite lonely there it's time to to do to just be amongst the people this time the vietnamese people it's gonna make me less stressed yeah and i was right of course but oh my god i i can actually insert the video what it looked like from the hotel lobby i can insert it here and and show you so this this is the video i made as the storm came back and we experienced the second part of the typhoon here you go yeah so the the strength of the wind like incredible right flying objects everywhere it was because uh you know a lot of lot of sort of plasterboards came off a lot of plasterboards came off the the building and they were all flying in the objects and and they were like rooftops were destroyed a lot of people lost their homes actually in this area It's usually the poor people, right?

The people that use cheap material that cannot afford something better and a lot of them just lost their homes.

It's really tragic.

If there is a way you could help, extend them some money, but you have to be careful because there's a lot of potential corruption in this area because there are always some bad people everywhere.

Just send it to some...

kind of official site where you know this money will be really delivered to the right people.

I'm going to do the same actually.

So just to help with the aftermath, right?

Yeah.

The wind was so strong that it blew off a lot of roofs, right?

A lot of roofs, but it toppled trees and...

yeah, uprooted trees and some electric poles and all that.

And we still have no power in the city, which is okay during the daylight.

But after six o 'clock, when it gets dark, it's just so dark here.

It feels like the Middle Ages, right?

It feels like, I mean, the medieval times again, where there was maybe some torchlight, maybe, but that was about it.

So, yeah.

I don't know what else is there to say, really.

What I would suggest is just watching some more videos online, maybe reading some more stuff about it.

And I think I'm doing this to show people the beauty of this, but also warn everyone against it.

Like, don't take it lightly.

Don't underestimate it, whether you are an expat living in Vietnam or in any Asian country or whether you are.

a local you know sometimes we tend to underestimate these things maybe we have been through something similar but all the vietnamese people are telling me that they had never experienced a typhoon this strong so it's common here right we are in the tropical zone i'm living in the tropical zone so it happens here but because of global warming things are getting For example, Vietnam is losing lots of its trees, lots of the forest because of industrialization.

They are making factories and they want to grow more plants and make more money.

It's all business and more people.

So they are destroying the forest.

And unfortunately, that's a problem.

especially because these typhoons also bring floods yeah and then and then the water has nowhere to go because forests are a great sort of water reservoir it soaks up it soaks up a lot of a lot of that water that comes with that with that rain so when when a typhoon like this makes a landfall which is a great expression to make a landfall which means that it it touches the shore right then then it brings a lot of water with it, like a lot of rain.

And when the water has nowhere to go, actually here in Vietnam, people have suffered with floods a lot already, and a lot of people died.

The death toll connected to this typhoon that I'm describing today was only five people, as far as I remember.

But the floods took way more lives.

They took way more lives before.

And it was quite something, you know, quite something.

Hundreds of lives were lost, I think, in the city of Hue, especially Hue and Hoi An as well, which is actually near Da Nang, where I used to live.

So it's rather tragic.

And also global warming, the activity of humans.

There are global warming deniers, but sorry, guys, it's real.

Science has confirmed it.

and these phenomena these natural disasters will probably be more and more common also i have to say sometimes you have even tornadoes that can come out of these hurricanes and i didn't see one but it's possible there were a few like local local smart tornadoes as well anyway guys yes i was happy to be alive after this and still don't have power so hopefully that will be restored soon and people will resume their normal lives here which they have kind of already done anyway I think Vietnamese people are quite tough because they have been through the war and people in these countries where these natural phenomena occur they are resilient you know they they know this can happen and they know they know it from the stories from their families this information gets passed down the generations.

It's normal here.

But because of the global warming and the environmental change, things could get worse.

So this is just a reminder to us that humans should look after nature a bit more than they do.

I guess that's the message.

That's the main message.

That's the moral of this story.

I don't know if there's a moral.

I don't want to preach or anything like that.

I just wanted to show you what it was like to be through a typhoon like that.

And I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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