Mega storm on its way to China leaves Hong Kong reeling

Typhoon Mangkhut shook Hong Kong en route to mainland China on Sunday, injuring scores and sending skyscrapers swaying, after killing at least 30 people in the Philippines and ripping a swathe of destruction through its agricultural heartland.

The world’s biggest storm this year left large expanses in the north of the Philippines main island of Luzon underwater as fierce winds tore trees from the ground and rain unleashed dozens of landslides.

In Hong Kong weather authorities issued their maximum alert for the storm, which battered the city with gusts of more than 230km/h and left more than 100 injured, according to government figures.

As the storm passed south of Hong Kong, trees were snapped in half and roads blocked, while some windows in tower blocks were smashed and skyscrapers swayed, as they are designed to do in intense gales.

The Philippines was just beginning to count the cost of the typhoon, but police confirmed at least 30 were killed when it smashed into northern Luzon on Saturday.

In the town of Baggao it demolished houses, tore off roofs and downed power lines. Some roads were cut off by landslides and many remained submerged.

Farms across northern Luzon, which produces much of the nation’s rice and maize, were sitting under muddy floodwater, their crops ruined just a month before harvest.

Nearly five million people, almost a quarter of whom survive on just a few dollars per day, live in the storm’s path. An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people.

In Hong Kong, hundreds of residents were evacuated from coastal fishing villages to storm shelters.

Roads were waist-deep in water, with parts of the city cut off by floods and fallen trees on Sunday afternoon as the rains continued. In the neighbouring gambling enclave of Macau, all 42 casinos were shut.