Typhoon Mangkhut slams Hong Kong and southern China
HONG KONG — Typhoon Mangkhut battered Hong Kong and Macau on Sunday with 100 mph wind gusts, drenching rains and 11-foot surges of seawater that inundated the first urban area of Asia to face the wrath of the year’s mightiest storm.
Mangkhut left a swath of damaged buildings and scores of injuries in Hong Kong and Macau before churning across the southern coast of China. Barely a day earlier, it ravaged the northern Philippines and left dozens buried in landslides, including people sheltering in a church and a dormitory for miners.
The Philippines death toll was expected to rise sharply as rescue workers began moving in.
While the other side of the world was preoccupied with the destructive power of Hurricane Florence as it drenched the Carolinas, Mangkhut hurtled into southern China’s city of Taishan, in the sprawling, densely populated province of Guangdong, making landfall around 5 p.m.
China’s state television reported that at least two people had been killed in the province. As night fell, the full extent of the damage was not yet clear.
Meteorologists have called Mangkhut the world’s most powerful storm of 2018, with a span as wide as 550 miles and wind gusts that hit 200 mph last week. At its peak, the typhoon was equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.
For Hong Kong, a metropolis that has shrugged off tropical storms in the past, Mangkhut was different. Though its peak gusts had slowed to 100 mph, Hong Kongers were taking no chances.
The typhoon accelerated as it crossed the South China Sea, landing a nearly direct hit on Hong Kong at midday Sunday and sweeping through the city’s canyons of tall buildings.
By then, the city’s normally teeming streets were clear of people and cars, as residents heeded the local weather authority’s signal 10 storm warning — its highest level.
For the first time ever, Macau, the gambling capital nearby, closed its casinos because of a storm. By the time the winds and rain eased, central parts of Macau had suffered major flooding and 20,000 people were left without electricity.
Hong Kong Airport, a central transit point for much of Asia, was virtually shut down on Sunday. Almost 1,000 flights were canceled or delayed. The outdoor sections of the city’s vaunted subway system were taken out of service.
China’s state television did not immediately provide details about the two deaths, but they followed reports on social media of people crushed by falling debris in Shenzhen and Dongguan, two cities along the Pearl River near Hong Kong.
There were no reports of deaths in Hong Kong, but by late afternoon on Sunday, 213 people had sought medical treatment, according to a government statement. More than 1,000 people sought refuge in 48 temporary shelters.