A powerful typhoon slammed into China’s Hainan Island yesterday after sweeping past Hong Kong, where it disrupted flights and forced the closure of the stock market and container ports.
Typhoon Kalmaegi buffeted Hong Kong with gusts of up to 159kph as it barreled west, injuring about 29 people, felling scores of trees and causing floods and a landslide.
The Hong Kong Observatory hoisted the No. 8 cyclone warning — the third in a five-tier system — late on Monday, triggering the closure of schools and businesses.
Photo: Reuters
The warning was lowered to a No. 3 strong-wind signal late yesterday morning, allowing the stock market to reopen.
In Hainan, more than 90,000 people were evacuated from the east coast of the island as local governments were told to prepare for “disaster-relief operations,” Xinhua news agency said.
China Southern Airlines said it would cancel all flights to and from the provincial capital Haikou, while ferry services and trains to the mainland across the 30km Qiongzhou Strait were also suspended, it said.
The China Meteorological Administration had an “orange” alert in place, the second-most severe in the nation’s four-tier weather warning system.
An earlier statement, which carried the most severe “red” alert, said that up to 400cm of rain was expected in some coastal areas.
In Hong Kong, authorities were hauling away debris and getting the territory back up and running, including clearing a backlog of hundreds of flights that were delayed or canceled.
The government said there were 128 reports of fallen trees and that some parts of the territory were flooded, with one report of a landslide.
“Although Kalmaegi is moving away, occasional gales will still affect the southwestern part and high ground of Hong Kong,” the Hong Kong Observatory said.
Television news footage showed uprooted trees, overturned bus stop signs and damaged bamboo construction scaffolding that had been torn down by the strong winds.
Twenty-nine people have sought treatment for typhoon-related injuries, the Hong Kong Hospital Authority said.
The Hong Kong stock exchange announced it would open in the afternoon after it canceled its morning trading session.
Typhoon Kalmaegi swept out of the Philippines on Monday after causing chest-deep floods in some rural areas, but leaving the storm-prone country largely unscathed.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not