Its winds, in large part, explain the mass casualties in the Philippines. According to NBC News, the death toll surpassed 5,200 on Nov. 22. Initial reports were that the storm had killed 10,000, but those estimates were later downgraded. Sandy killed 148.

Haiyan caused an estimated $700 million in losses, according to the Insurance Journal. Sandy, by contrast, wrought $68 billion in damage over 24 states. Don’t be fooled by those numbers, though. The devastation in the Philippines was far worse than here. The dollar amount of the damage was smaller simply because the Philippines is less developed than the U.S.’s East Coast. But Haiyan leveled –– leveled –– many parts of the Philippines.

Aerial photos before the storm showed magnificent green jungles surrounding coastal communities. Afterward, for miles around, there were only brown fields, the vegetation shredded by Haiyan’s winds and swept out to sea by the tidal surge.

It was strange, ominous even, that Haiyan wreaked such havoc in the Philippines as the United Nations convened its annual Climate Conference in Warsaw, Poland, from Nov. 11 to 22. A bloc of 132 poor nations walked out of the convention because rich nations, including the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia, refused to discuss whether developed nations should be required to compensate developing countries such as the Philippines for losses during extreme “climate events” such as Haiyan, according to The Guardian. The developed countries’ representatives said they would discuss the question after 2015.

The poor nations’ argument was this: Wealthier countries have long emitted far greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through their industrial activities, including electricity generation, than developing nations have. Often, developing nations’ carbon output is a mere fraction of that produced by the leading industrial countries, including China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter.