Two typhoon names – Mangosteen and Rumbia – have been retired, due to the significant damage they caused in 2018, by a typhoon committee.
The Typhoon Committee, an intergovernmental body under the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), made the decision at the ongoing 51st session on Thursday, February 28, 2019 in Guangzhou, the capital city of southern China’s Guangdong province.
Mangosteen and Rumbia, the 22nd and 18th named storms, caused extensive destruction in the Asia-Pacific region in 2018.
In China, coastal provinces, including Shandong suffered from severe floods after Typhoon Rumbia.
At least 3.8 million people were affected, with six dead and 15 missing.
The committee started to name tropical cyclones in the northwestern Pacific and the South China Sea since 2000.
Each of the 14 members of the committee, including Cambodia, the Chinese mainland, Thailand, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Hong Kong and Japan submitted 10 names.
Thailand and Malaysia who picked the names Mangosteen and Rumbia are able to offer new typhoon names in the next session.
Three new names submitted by Japan and Hong Kong to replace removed names in 2017 have been approved in the session.
The Typhoon Committee has removed 45 typhoon names within the northwestern Pacific and the South China Sea.
