WhereIsAtlas · Philippines
What Was Typhoon Nina?
In five days in November 1987, Nina killed 979 people in the Philippines — and 287 of them died in one town.
Typhoon Nina, called Sisang in the Philippines, crossed the islands from 23 to 27 November 1987 and killed 979 people, with 287 of those deaths in the single town of Matnog.
From the Marshall Islands to Luzon
Nina began as an area of convection near the Marshall Islands in mid-November 1987. It was first classified as a tropical cyclone on 19 November, and by the time it reached the Philippines it was moving west-northwest across the island group. The crossing itself took five days, from 23 to 27 November, according to typhoon2000's record of the twenty deadliest Philippine typhoons between 1947 and 2009.
One town, a third of the dead
The worst of it fell on Matnog, in Sorsogon province, where 287 people died. In Sorsogon city, 61 people died and 98% of all structures were either damaged or destroyed. Those two numbers describe the same province from opposite ends: one small municipality where the toll concentrated, and a city where almost nothing was left standing but the loss of life was, proportionally, far smaller. [3]
A national death toll flattens that. Saying 979 people died is true and tells a reader almost nothing about what happened, because the fatalities were not distributed across the country — they were concentrated in places that took a direct hit, and the record names them.
Where the figure stands, and its alternative
typhoon2000's table records 979 deaths and places Nina seventh among the twenty deadliest Philippine typhoons of 1947 to 2009. An alternate official count of 1,036 is in circulation. The sources give both without explaining the difference, and the gap is consistent with the usual cause: a count compiled at the time, and a later revision that folds in the missing and the injured who died afterwards. [1]
We lead with 979 because it is the figure the reference table gives, and we record the alternative because a reader comparing us against another source will meet 1,036 and deserves to know it is not an error in either place. [1]
Why the Visayas and Bicol keep appearing
Nina struck Bicol, Marinduque and Calabarzon. Ike, three years earlier, struck Surigao, Bohol, Cebu and Negros. Both appear in the same table of twenty storms, alongside Thelma in 1991, Mike in 1990 and Durian in 2006. The Philippines is crossed by roughly twenty tropical cyclones in a typical year, and the deadliest ones share a signature: a direct hit on a populated coast, a storm surge or a landslide behind it, and a toll that concentrates in a handful of towns rather than spreading evenly.
What the sources do not say
The references record the dates, the places and the tolls. They do not give a house-by-house accounting of how the 287 deaths at Matnog were compiled, and they do not reconcile 979 with 1,036. What they do establish is enough to write down without inventing anything: when it happened, where it went, and how many people it killed. [1]
Entries in this story
More from the files
- What Was Typhoon Ike? Philippines · Typhoons · Disasters
Sources
- 20 Deadliest Philippine Typhoons (1947–2009) — typhoon2000.ph (2026-10-30) ↩
- Deadliest, most destructive cyclones of the Philippines — Philstar (2026-10-30)
- Typhoon Nina (1987) — Wikipedia (2026-10-30) ↩