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08-09-2024
HANOI/ HAIPHONG/ BEIJING: Super Typhoon Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, made landfall in northern Vietnam on Saturday, the meteorological agency said, after tearing through China’s southern island of Hainan where it reportedly killed two people and injured dozens.
Yagi, the world’s second-most powerful tropical cyclone in 2024, has already killed at least 16 people in the Philippines, having formed east of the archipelago earlier in the week.
As it hit island districts of North Vietnam around 1300 local time (0600 GMT) on Saturday, it generated winds of up to 160 kph (99 mph) near its centre, having lost power from its peak of 234 kph (145 mph) in Hainan a day earlier.
Vietnam’s coastal city of Haiphong, an industrial hub with a population of 2 million that hosts factories from foreign multinationals and local carmaker VinFast , is so far among the hardest hit by the winds.
Parts of the city experienced power outages on Saturday, authorities said.
The wind smashed buildings’ glass windows and broke tree branches, according to a media witness. City streets were deserted as citizens’ heeded authorities’ calls to stay indoors.
Earlier in Hainan, which has a population of more than 10 million, the storm knocked down trees, flooded roads and cut power to more than 800,000 homes.
Vietnam evacuated nearly 50,000 people from coastal towns and deployed 450,000 military personnel, the government said.
It also suspended operations for several hours at four airports on Saturday, including Hanoi’s Noi Bai, the busiest in the north, cancelling more than 300 flights.
High schools were also closed in 12 Northern provinces, including in the capital Hanoi.
Typhoons are becoming stronger, fueled by warmer oceans, amid climate change, scientists say. Last week, Typhoon Shanshan slammed into southwestern Japan, the strongest storm to hit the country in decades.
Yagi is named after the Japanese word for goat and the constellation of Capricornus.
Before hitting the mainland, the typhoon uprooted hundreds of trees on Co To Island, about 80km (50 miles) from mainland Quang Ninh.
The storm killed two people and injured 92 others on southern China’s Hainan Island, and prompted the evacuation of about 460,000 people.
Yagi killed at least 21 people in the Philippines earlier this week when it was still categorised as a tropical storm.
Super Typhoon Yagi has made landfall on the Chinese island province of Hainan, state media reported, after more than 400,000 people were forced to evacuate.
The meteorological service in heavily populated Hainan said on Friday that Yagi, which was earlier packing maximum sustained winds of 245km/h (152mph) near its centre, hit the province’s Wenchang city at about 4:20pm (08:20 GMT).
Yagi registers as the world’s second-most powerful tropical cyclone in 2024, after Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane Beryl, and the most severe in the Pacific basin.
On Friday, at least 419,367 residents in Hainan, a popular holiday destination, were relocated before Yagi’s landfall, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The storm had more than doubled in strength since killing 16 people in the northern Philippines earlier this week.
It is expected to sweep towards other parts of Hainan and Guangdong province before moving to the Beibu Gulf.
The Ministry of Water Resources on Thursday raised its emergency response to flooding in both provinces to the third-highest tier. (Int’l News Desk)
