Mangkhut buries dozens
China pounded after at least 64 die in the Philippines
Typhoon Mangkhut has barrelled into southern China after lashing the Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain that caused landslides feared to have buried dozens.
More than 2.4 million people had been evacuated in southern China’s Guangdong province to flee the typhoon, state media said. “Prepare for the worst,” Hong Kong Security Minister John Lee Ka-chiu urged residents.
That warning followed Mangkhut’s devastating march through the northern Philippines at the weekend with sustained winds of 205km/h. National police said 64 people had died there as of Sunday, mostly due to landslides and collapsed houses, with two additional deaths reported in China.
Landslides caused by the pounding storm hit two villages in Itogon town in the Philippine mountain province of Benguet. Police Superintendent Pelita Tacio said 34 villagers had died and 36 were missing.
Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan told the Associated Press by phone that at the height of the typhoon’s onslaught on Saturday, dozens of people, mostly miners and their families, rushed into an old three-storey building in the village of Ucab.
The building — a former mining bunkhouse that had been transformed into a chapel — was obliterated when part of a mountain slope collapsed. Three villagers who managed to escape told authorities what happened.
“They thought they were really safe there,” Palangdan said. Rescue workers continued to look for survivors yesterday.
Mangkhut made landfall in the Guangdong city of Taishan at 9pm NZT Sunday, packing wind speeds of 162km/h. State television broadcaster CGTN reported that surging waves flooded a seaside hotel in the city of Shenzhen.
The storm shattered glass windows on commercial skyscrapers in Hong Kong, sending sheets of paper pouring out of the buildings, fluttering and spiralling as they headed for the debris-strewn ground, according to videos on social media.
Mangkhut also felled trees, tore scaffolding off buildings under construction and flooded some areas of Hong Kong with waist-high waters, according to the South China Morning Post.
Casinos on Macau were ordered closed.
A red alert, the most severe warning, was issued for densely populated southern China, which the national meteorological centre said would face a “severe test caused by wind and rain”.
Flights over the weekend and into yesterday were cancelled in Hong Kong and the mainland cities of Shenzhen, Haikou, Sanya, Guangzhou and Zhuhai. All high-speed and some normal rail services in Guangdong and Hainan provinces were also halted, the China Railway Guangzhou Group said.