Typhoon Saola yesterday swept across southern China after tearing down trees and smashing windows in Hong Kong, although the territory avoided a feared direct hit from one of the region’s strongest storms in decades.
Tens of millions of people in the densely populated coastal areas of southern China had on Friday sheltered indoors ahead of the storm.
Saola triggered Hong Kong’s highest threat level on Friday evening — issued only 16 times since World War II — and registered winds of about 210kph at its peak.
Photo: AFP
It was downgraded before dawn yesterday as the typhoon passed the territory and tracked toward the coastal areas of China — where it weakened into a severe tropical storm.
So far, Hong Kong has had no reported casualties and far less damage than that created by 2018’s powerful Typhoon Mangkhut, but authorities warned people to stay away from the shoreline as Saola was still whipping up strong gales.
One person was killed in Shenzhen after a tree fell and hit their vehicle, local media reported.
Agence France-Presse journalists saw multiple fallen trees strewn across Hong Kong roads, broken windows, and crumpled scaffolding from under-construction buildings, while local media reported that solar panels had been ripped off rooftops.
“Yesterday was a bit scary,” a woman who only gave her name as Angelie said. “In our [residential] estate, there were a lot of trees fallen, and some windows were broken.”
A resident in Hong Kong’s Heng Fa Chuen housing estate — the site of devastation during Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018 — said she felt “some swaying” in her building during the night
“But overall, we didn’t feel unsafe,” she said.
The Hong Kong Civil Aid Service yesterday said that more than 500 people were deployed around the territory to evaluate damage.
Hong Kong International Airport gradually resumed flights, after mass cancelations and delays the day before, while neighboring gambling hub Macau announced the reopening of casinos that had been closed for a day — a rarity — due to the severity of Saola.
Saola made landfall in the Chinese coastal city of Zhuhai, where workers yesterday moved metal railings from roads and cleared sand whipped from a nearby beach.
By afternoon, it had moved west to the tourist island of Hailing in Guangdong Province, bringing sustained winds at a speed of 100kph.
China had initially warned that Saola “may become the strongest typhoon to make landfall” in the region since 1949, but by yesterday afternoon, Guangdong Province downgraded its emergency response due to the weakened windspeed.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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