Miners’ families buried in wake of typhoon
Typhoon Mangkhut 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 by Sunday evening 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 with sustained winds of 205kmh. National police said 64 people had died there, 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 said that at the height of the typhoon’s onslaught on Saturday afternoon, dozens of people, mostly miners and their families, rushed into an old three-story 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,’’ the mayor said. He expressed sadness that the villagers, many of them poor, had few options to survive in a region where big corporations have profited immensely from gold mines.
The rescue work halted for the night before resuming Monday morning. Men used pikes and shovels to dig into the mud since the soaked ground was unstable and limited the use of heavy equipment on site.
Mangkhut made landfall in the Guangdong city of Taishan at 5pm Sunday, loocal time, packing wind speeds of 162kmh. 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. –AP