Super typhoon batters southern China, causing blackouts and flooding

2 weeks ago 7

Super typhoon batters southern China, causing blackouts and flooding

Typhoon Ragasa slammed into southern China Wednesday, unleashing 150 miles per hour wind gusts and torrential rain.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

After tearing through the Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong, a typhoon has made landfall in China. Reporter Sherisse Pham has more.

SHERISSE PHAM, BYLINE: Typhoon Ragasa battered southern China with wind gusts of a hundred and fifty miles per hour - a record high, according to The Associated Press. The storm made landfall along the coast of Guangdong on Wednesday evening. Torrential rains and strong winds blew out windows and caused blackouts and flooding across coastal cities. More than 2 million people were evacuated ahead of the storm's arrival. Beijing has already earmarked tens of millions of dollars for disaster relief.

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PHAM: In Hong Kong, waves as high as 13 feet crashed through stores and restaurants and flooded the lobby of an oceanfront hotel. Schools and offices were shut. Hundreds of flights were canceled and trees uprooted as the super typhoon passed by the Asian financial hub. Hong Kong's observatory raised the strongest hurricane signal, a T10, early Wednesday morning. It was in force for nearly 11 hours, the second-longest stretch in the city's history.

Hong Kong was slowly getting back to normal on Thursday morning. Toppled trees were cleared off of roadways and public transportation resumed service. In the Philippines and Taiwan, more than two dozen people were killed when the center of the typhoon passed through earlier this week. Typhoon Ragasa is the most powerful storm in the world so far this year, according to NASA.

Benjamin Horton is dean of the School of the Environment at Hong Kong City University. He told local broadcaster RTHK that extreme weather like Ragasa is becoming more frequent.

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BENJAMIN HORTON: We are continuing to break or equal records on the number of these extreme events. And the obvious causal factor of that is climate change.

PHAM: Ragasa is expected to continue moving west this week as it gradually weakens to a tropical storm and hits Vietnam.

For NPR News, I'm Sherisse Pham in Hong Kong.

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