Hong Kong: A powerful typhoon made landfall on the Chinese tropical vacation island of Hainan Friday after it swept south of Hong Kong, forcing many aspects of life in the region to a halt.
The Hainan province’s meteorological service said Yagi — earlier packing winds of up to about 245 km (152 miles) per hour near its centre — made landfall in the province’s Wenchang city at around 4:20 pm. It is expected to sweep toward other parts of the island before moving to the Beibu Gulf, it said.
China’s national meteorological authorities said Yagi was the strongest autumn typhoon to have landed in China. They predicted it would make a second landfall in Xuwen County in neighbouring Guangdong province on Friday night.
Nearly 420,000 residents have been relocated in Hainan. People built sandbag barriers outside buildings to guard against possible floods and reinforced their windows with tape on Thursday, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
State media said classes, work, transportation and businesses had been suspended in parts of the province as early as Wednesday evening. Some tourist attractions were closed and all flights at three airports on the island were expected to be grounded on Friday.
State broadcaster CCTV said Qinzhou city in Guangxi region also issued a top emergency response alert to guard against the typhoon. It said Yagi is expected to make another landfall somewhere between the region’s Fangchenggang city and the coastal area of northern Vietnam on Saturday afternoon.
Earlier, trading on the stock market, bank services and schools were halted in Hong Kong on Friday after the city’s weather authority raised a No. 8 typhoon signal for Yagi, the third-highest warning under the city’s weather system.
Yagi forced more than 270 people to seek refuge at temporary government shelters and led to cancellations of more than 100 flights in the city. Nine people were injured and treated at hospitals. Heavy rain and strong winds felled dozens of trees.
Yagi was still a tropical storm when it blew out of the northwestern Philippines into the South China Sea on Wednesday, leaving at least 16 people dead and 17 others missing, mostly in landslides and widespread flooding, and affecting more than 2 million people in northern and central provinces.
More than 47,600 people were displaced from their homes in Philippine provinces, and classes, work, inter-island ferry services and domestic flights were disrupted for days, including in the densely populated capital region, metropolitan Manila.
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