China bracing for Super Typhoon Ragasa, over 3.7 lakh evacuated, schools, businesses closed; flights cancelled in Hong Kong
Preparations are underway in China and Hong Kong for Super Typhoon Ragasa. More than 3,70,000 people have been evacuated from China's Guangdong province so far.
Ragasa is expected to make landfall in Guangdong on Wednesday.
Hundreds of flights have been cancelled in Hong Kong due to Ragasa. The Hong Kong Observatory has issued a Level 8 typhoon warning, just two levels below the maximum warning level of 10.
Super Typhoon Ragasa has very strong winds of about 230 kilometers per hour, according to the weather service in Hong Kong. The typhoon is moving west-northwest at about 22 kilometers per hour across the northern part of the South China Sea and is getting closer to Guangdong province, which is an important area in southern China.
China’s weather center predicts that the typhoon will hit land tomorrow on Wednesday in the area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong. It will likely stay in the South China Sea until at least Wednesday, moving south of Taiwan and Hong Kong before reaching mainland China.
China has ordered the closure of schools and some businesses in at least 10 cities. In Zhuhai, people are closing the windows of their homes and shops.
To ensure safe railway operations, China Railway Guangzhou Group Co., Ltd. has decided to gradually suspend high-speed and conventional trains within Guangdong starting from noon on Tuesday, with the scope of suspensions adjusted dynamically according to the typhoon's impact.
All high-speed and conventional trains in the province will be suspended throughout Wednesday. From the early hours of Thursday, train services will be gradually resumed as the typhoon's impact weakens.
3 die, five missing in Philipines
Typhoon Ragasa passed over small islands in the northern Philippines on Monday. In the Philippines, Ragasa left at least three persons dead and five others missing and displaced more than 17,500 people in flooding and landslides set off by the most powerful storm to hit the Southeast Asian archipelago this year, the country's disaster-response agency and provincial officials said.
The dead included a 74-year-old man, who died while being brought to a hospital after being pinned in one of four vehicles that were partly buried by mud, rocks and trees that cascaded down a mountainside onto a narrow road on Monday in the mountain town of Tuba in Benguet province, officials said.
Two other villagers died in the storm, including a resident in Calayan town, a cluster of islands off northern Cagayan province where the super typhoon made landfall on Monday, officials said without providing details.
Six injured and over 7,000 evacuated in Taiwan
At least six persons were injured and over 7,000 people were evacuated in Taiwan when the typhoon swept south of the island, and over 8,000 households were impacted by a power outage, the Central News Agency reported.