Typhoon hits China after killing 64 in Philippines
STORMY DAYS 2.4 mn people relocated in Guangdong, Macau closes casinos
HONGKONG: Typhoon Mangkhut barreled into southern China on Sunday, killing two people after lashing the Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain that left at least 64 dead and dozens more feared buried in a landslide.
More than 2.4 million people had been evacuated in southern China’s Guangdong province by Sunday evening to flee the massive typhoon and nearly 50,000 fishing boats were called back to port, state media reported. It threatened to be the strongest typhoon to hit Hong Kong in nearly two decades.
“Prepare for the worst,” Hong Kong Security Minister John Lee Ka-chiu urged residents. That warning came after Mangkhut’s devastating march through the northern Philippines, where the storm made landfall on Saturday on Luzon island with sustained winds of 205 km per hour and gusts of 255 kph.
Dozens of people, mostly miners and their families, were feared to have been trapped by a landslide in the far-flung village of Ucab in Itogon town in the northern Philippine mountain province of Benguet, Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan told The Associated Press by phone.
At the height of the typhoon’s onslaught Saturday afternoon, Palangdan said three villagers who nearly got buried by the huge pile of mud and rocks told authorities they saw residents rush into an old three-story building, a former mining bunkhouse that has been transformed into a chapel.