Super Typhoon Yagi made landfall on Saturday afternoon on the coast of northern Vietnam, state media reported, continuing its devastating course after causing two deaths and extensive damage in southern China.
Yagi struck Quang Ninh and Haiphong provinces in northern Vietnam, uprooting thousands of trees and sweeping ships out to sea, he said. VNExpress.
In Haiphong, metal roofs and billboards blew across the city under strong winds and heavy rains brought by the typhoon. “I haven’t seen a typhoon of this magnitude for years”“Tran Thi Hoa, a 48-year-old Haiphong resident, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “It was terrifying. I stayed inside, having closed all the windows. But the sound of the wind and rain was incredible. I could even hear the sound of metal roofs breaking and falling onto the street.”
In Vietnam, the typhoon was expected to pass through Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked local authorities ahead of the storm to evacuate residents from dangerous areas. He also asked other residents not to leave their homes.
Some 20,000 people have been evacuated and transported to safer, higher-altitude areas in northern Haiphong, Thai Binh and Hanoi, local authorities said. They have been housed in schools, kindergartens and other public buildings. Four airports in the north of the country, including the capital’s Noi Bai international airport, have been closed and navigation banned since Friday.
Gusts greater than 230 km/h
In southern China, Typhoon Yagi left at least two dead and 92 injured the day before on the tourist island of Hainan, known for its sandy beaches and luxury hotels, according to the first death toll announced Saturday by the official news agency. new china.
The typhoon brought heavy rain and wind gusts of over 230 km/h that uprooted numerous trees. Some 460,000 people have been evacuated to safety on the island, according to state television CCTV. Television footage showed heavy rain and countless trees uprooted, some of which fell on cars.
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In neighbouring Guangdong province in southern China, authorities said on Friday they had also evacuated more than 574,000 residents to safe places. The airport in Haikou, Hainan’s capital in the north of the island, will remain temporarily closed until midday on Sunday, the agency said. new china.
Chinese media footage from locations in Hainan and Guangdong showed extensive damage. CCTV broadcast images of a Hainan hotel with a devastated lobby, broken computers and piles of metal structures on the floor, with French windows torn off by the force of the wind. In the city of Leizhou in Guangdong, road workers wearing hard hats on Saturday removed numerous trees that had fallen onto the road, according to CCTV footage.
Yagi killed at least 13 people in the Philippines this week while still classified as a tropical storm. It caused flooding and landslides on the main island of Luzon before becoming a super typhoon in recent days.
The typhoon then passed within 400 kilometres of Hong Kong overnight on Thursday into Friday, bringing heavy rain. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange was suspended on Friday and schools closed, but damage was limited.
Southern China is frequently battered in summer and fall by typhoons that form in the warm oceans east of the Philippines and Thailand. But typhoons in the region are forming closer to shore than before, intensifying more quickly and staying over land longer because of climate change, according to a study published in July.
