Typhoon Vicki

Also known as: Typhoon Gading — the PAGASA name by which the storm crossed the Philippine record · Typhoon Vicki (Gading) — the double-name styling of this wiki's MV Princess of the Orient entry · Typhoon Gading (Vicki) — the local-first styling of Philippine retrospective lists · Typhoon 9807 — the JMA's numbering, used in the Japanese record · 平成10年台風第7号 (Heisei 10, Typhoon No. 7) — the storm's Japanese designation

The 1988 Marilyn storm, the 1998 Princess of the Orient storm, and the Spanish-language literary award

Definition

Typhoon Vicki — carried in the Philippine record by its PAGASA local name Gading and numbered Typhoon 9807 by the Japan Meteorological Agency — was the September 17–22, 1998 typhoon that formed in the South China Sea west of Luzon, reached typhoon strength about a day after forming, and then moved on an unusual eastward track, crossing Luzon on September 18 before curving northeast and striking Japan’s Kii Peninsula on September 22, where it became extratropical. The JMA carried Vicki at 140 km/h (85 mph) ten-minute winds with a minimum pressure of 960 hPa — Category 2-equivalent, 165 km/h (105 mph), on the one-minute scale — and the west-to-east crossing made it one of the rare cyclones in the Philippine record to travel from the South China Sea into the Pacific. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

In the Philippines Vicki killed 9 people directly and affected more than 300,000 with torrential rain over northern Luzon — and it is fixed in the national memory as the storm of the MV Princess of the Orient sinking, the night the Sulpicio Lines flagship foundered near Fortune Island off Batangas. The storm’s own article attributes to the sinking “70 [killed] with 80 missing and presumed dead”; the ship’s account and the Supreme Court’s in Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante carry “of the 388 recorded passengers, 150 were lost.” In Japan the typhoon killed two women in Nara Prefecture and generated insurance claims of ¥159.9 billion (US$1.22 billion); the overall ledger stands at 108 dead and 10 missing. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Typhoon Vicki — the article title; PAGASA name Gading carried in the lede (verified this session)
Wikidata	Typhoon Vicki (Q11482792) — “Pacific typhoon in 1998”; enwiki sitelink Typhoon Vicki, jawiki 平成10年台風第7号; Digital Typhoon ID 199807; IBTrACS 1998259N17118 (verified this session) (Wikidata — Q11482792)
DBpedia	Typhoon_Vicki (resource verified via the data endpoint this session; sameAs Q11482792) (DBpedia — Typhoon Vicki)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	typhoon — noun, “A severe tropical cyclone; an intense, rotating storm” (entry verified this session) (Wiktionary — typhoon)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	Typhoons (sh85139165) — the subject class of the storm (verified this session via id.loc.gov) (LCSH — Typhoons)
MeSH	Cyclonic Storms (D055867) — the descriptor class of the storm (verified this session via the NLM lookup) (MeSH — Cyclonic Storms)
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Typhoon Vicki Gading September 1998 eastward track Luzon crossing Kii Peninsula Japan MV Princess of the Orient Fortune Island sinking 108 deaths Philippines
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Typhoon Gading — the PAGASA name by which the storm crossed the Philippine record
Typhoon Vicki (Gading) — the double-name styling of this wiki’s MV Princess of the Orient entry
Typhoon Gading (Vicki) — the local-first styling of Philippine retrospective lists
Typhoon 9807 — the JMA’s numbering, used in the Japanese record
平成10年台風第7号 (Heisei 10, Typhoon No. 7) — the storm’s Japanese designation

Examples and Analogies

The backward typhoon: where the archipelago’s storms normally arrive from the Pacific and exit to the South China Sea, Vicki formed west of Luzon on September 17 and crossed the island eastward into the Pacific — the meteorological exception that put a west-facing sea — and a Manila fleet — in a storm’s front yard. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)
The storm that sank a flagship: the MV Princess of the Orient — Sulpicio Lines’ flagship, capacity 3,994 — sailed from Manila for Cebu into Vicki’s night with Metro Manila under Storm Signal No. 1, met seas of seven to eight meters, and foundered near Fortune Island with 150 of its 388 recorded passengers lost — the disaster this wiki’s MV Princess of the Orient entry documents. (Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)
Verified storm data (each figure attributed to its carrier):
Names and designation: international Vicki; PAGASA Gading; JMA Typhoon 9807; IBTrACS 1998259N17118; Digital Typhoon 199807 (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikidata — Q11482792)
Duration: September 17–22, 1998 — formed in the South China Sea west of Luzon, typhoon within about a day, Luzon crossing September 18, Kii Peninsula landfall September 22, extratropical thereafter (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)
Peak intensity: 140 km/h (85 mph) 10-minute winds, 960 hPa (JMA); Category 2-equivalent 165 km/h (105 mph), 954 hPa (JTWC/SSHWS) (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)
Philippine toll (attributed): 9 killed directly, over 300,000 affected, torrential rain over northern Luzon; a DWDW 1017 radio transmitter destroyed, ending that station’s broadcasts (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)
Maritime disaster: MV Princess of the Orient sank near Fortune Island the night of the Luzon crossing — 70 dead and 80 missing and presumed dead in the storm’s article; “of the 388 passengers on board, 150 were killed” in the ship’s; “of the 388 recorded passengers, 150 were lost” in the Supreme Court’s (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)
Japan toll: two women killed in Nara Prefecture; damage to the Kasuga Grand Shrine and the five-storied pagoda at Muro temple; over 60 domestic flights cancelled; insurance claims ¥159.9 billion (US$1.22 billion) (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)
Overall totals: 108 dead, 10 missing, $1.22 billion (1998 USD) in the storm’s article and the season’s effects table (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)
Season context: the seventh named storm and fourth typhoon of the 1998 season — the least active Pacific typhoon season on record to that point, a La Niña year (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying Unusual Tracks

Vicki is the standard Philippine case of a west-to-east crossing — a cyclone developed in the South China Sea, transiting Luzon into the Pacific — used in teaching that storm signals and sailing rules must answer to a storm’s bearing, not to the basin’s usual traffic direction. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

2. The Princess of the Orient Disaster

The storm is inseparable from the sinking: the flagship sailed on the typhoon night, listed as its cargo shifted, and foundered near Fortune Island — the event the Board of Marine Inquiry judged and the Supreme Court litigated for eighteen years in Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante. (Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)

3. Reading the Inactive Season

Within the 1998 season — 16 tropical storms and 967 deaths overall, the quietest to that point — Vicki was the September disaster that preceded October’s super typhoons Zeb (Iliang) and Babs (Loleng), the year’s two great Philippine cyclones. (Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

4. Accounting for a Two-Country Toll

Vicki’s ledger spans two countries — 9 direct deaths in the Philippines, a mass-casualty maritime disaster on its night, two deaths and a billion-dollar insurance bill in Japan — a specimen of the multi-state accounting Northwest Pacific typhoons require. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)

Strategies

Attribute the ferry toll to its carrier: 70 dead with 80 missing and presumed dead in the storm’s article; 150 of 388 in the ship’s article and the Supreme Court’s decision — cite the source, not the average, per this wiki’s MV Princess of the Orient entry. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)
Keep the direct toll and the disaster toll distinct: the 9 directly killed by the storm in the Philippines are separate from the 108-dead overall ledger that includes the sinking — the same disaggregation Philippine typhoon accounting always demands. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)
Carry both names in every citation: Vicki alone can mislead, because the name has also labeled other storms; the pair Vicki (Gading), with the year, identifies the storm unambiguously. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)
Read the quiet season for its disasters: 1998’s inactivity made Vicki’s September the year’s first Philippine disaster season — a reminder that low-ACE years still kill. (Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

Security and Safety Measures

A Signal No. 1 night is not permission to sail: Metro Manila was under Storm Signal No. 1 during the sinking, and the Board of Marine Inquiry’s finding — the captain’s maneuvers in extreme weather as the immediate and proximate cause — turned on what a flagship should have done under that signal; smaller fishing boats, the record notes, weathered the same seas. (LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)
Cargo securing is a storm-safety system: the ship’s article records waves of seven to eight meters and the probable cause of the foundering as cargo not properly lashed — the stowage failure that turned a storm crossing into a capsizing. (Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient)
Expect the abnormal track: Vicki’s eastward crossing put the west coast of Luzon on the storm’s dangerous side — the planning lesson that the Philippines’ coastlines face both basins. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)
For researchers: the Supreme Court decision that adjudicated the sinking never names the typhoon — the Vicki/Gading pairing rests on the meteorological record, so legal documents and storm articles must be cited side by side, not blended. (LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante, Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)

Historical Context

The 1998 season was the least active on record to that point — sixteen tropical storms, a late start under a strong La Niña — and Vicki was its September disaster. The storm crossed Luzon eastward on September 18; that night the Princess of the Orient sailed from Manila for Cebu, listed as her cargo shifted in heavy seas, and foundered near Fortune Island with 150 of 388 recorded passengers lost. The Board of Marine Inquiry located the proximate cause in the captain’s maneuvers; the civil litigation became Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante, resolved by the Supreme Court on July 27, 2016 with liability and damages affirmed against the company. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season, Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)

After the Philippines, Vicki curved northeast across the Pacific and struck Japan’s Kii Peninsula on September 22, killing two in Nara, damaging the Kasuga Grand Shrine and the Muro temple pagoda, and generating ¥159.9 billion in insurance claims before becoming extratropical. October then brought the season’s monsters — Zeb (Iliang) and Babs (Loleng) — and the year closed with 967 deaths. No retirement of Vicki or Gading is recorded in the season’s standard accounts. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)

Challenges and Controversies

The Ferry Toll Ledger

The Princess of the Orient count varies by carrier: 70 dead and 80 missing and presumed dead in the storm’s article; 150 killed of 388 aboard in the ship’s own; “of the 388 recorded passengers, 150 were lost” in the Supreme Court’s — ledgers this wiki’s MV Princess of the Orient entry carries as attributed, and which the sinking time variance (12:55 a.m. in the ship’s account against the decision’s “around 12:55 p.m.”) compounds. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — MV Princess of the Orient, LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)

A Storm the Court Never Named

The adjudication of the disaster proceeded without the storm’s name: Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante describes Storm Signal No. 1, seven-to-eight-meter seas, and 25-knot winds, but never Vicki or Gading — the name-pairing belongs to the meteorological record alone, a small standing friction between the legal and weather archives. (LawPhil — Sulpicio Lines v. Sesante)

Direct Deaths Versus Disaster Deaths

Whether the storm “killed” 9 or 108 depends on the ledger: the direct Philippine toll was 9, the overall total 108 with 10 missing, the difference built almost entirely from the maritime disaster and Japan’s deaths — an accounting dispute every summary of the storm must negotiate. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki)

The Damage Denominator

The $1.22 billion figure attached to Vicki is the Japanese insurance-claims total — not Philippine damage — and using it as the storm’s “damage” without qualification inflates the Philippine event; the season table’s $1.22 billion is the same Japan-derived number. (Wikipedia — Typhoon Vicki, Wikipedia — 1998 Pacific typhoon season)