Last week, the southern Philippines was struck by Typhoon Bopha, the strongest tropical cyclone to ever hit the island of Mindanao. Bopha made landfall as a Category 5 super typhoon with winds of 160 mph (260 km/h), flattening coastal villages, wiping out banana plantations, and causing mudslides and flooding. At the moment, the number of deaths has reached nearly 650, the number of missing is still near 800, and another 400,000 have been displaced by the storm. Collected here are images from the affected islands, as rescue and recovery workers continue to search through debris in fields choked with trees, boulders, and mud.
Typhoon Bopha
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A typhoon victim holds a bag of relief goods as she walks among debris swept by floodwaters at the height of Typhoon Bopha, while returning to an evacuation center in New Bataan town in Compostela Valley, southern Philippines, on December 7, 2012. Residents in the southern Philippines buried their dead over the weekend, even as rescue workers continued scouring remote areas for survivors of Typhoon Bopha, the nation's strongest storm this year, which killed nearly 650 people and left nearly 800 missing. #
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Thousands of typhoon-toppled banana trees on a plantation in New Bataan, Compostela Valley province, on December 7, 2012. President Benigno Aquino vowed action on the Philippines' typhoon disasters as bruised and grieving survivors tried to recover. #
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A rare cloud formation above a destroyed banana plantation, four days after typhoon Bopha left hundreds of people dead and rendered extensive damage to agriculture at Montevista township, Compostela Valley, on December 8, 2012. #
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Smoke rises from a village devastated by Typhoon Bopha as residents burn coconut leaves and other debris left at the height of last Tuesday's typhoon, in the coastal town of Boston, on December 10, 2012. #
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A girl is comforted upon seeing the sealed coffin of her relative at a damaged public market which now serves as a makeshift mortuary for typhoon Bopha's victims at New Bataan township, on December 8, 2012. #
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Children wait for free porridge distributed outside an evacuation center for residents who were rendered homeless after their houses were swept by floodwaters at the height of Typhoon Bopha, in New Bataan Town, on December 8, 2012. #
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An elderly woman, a victim of the devastating Typhoon, begs for alms next to a sign displayed along the roadside in the town of Nabunturan Town, on December 9, 2012. Desperate families begged for food days after the typhoon brought death and destruction to parts of a southern Philippine island. #
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A man stands near makeshift tents surrounded by a destroyed banana plantation in New Bataan Town, on December 6, 2012. Typhoon Bopha caused crop damage worth 8.5 billion pesos ($210 million). The most intense storm to hit the Philippines this year wiped out about 90 percent of three coastal towns in Davao Oriental province and buried an entire town under mud. #
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