Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into mainland China late Sunday after leaving a trail of destruction in Hong Kong and Macau.
After killing at least 59 people in the northern Philippines, the world’s biggest storm this year felled trees and sent skyscrapers swaying in high-rise Hong Kong, injuring more than 200 people there before making landfall on the coast of Jiangmen city.
Provincial authorities said they evacuated a total of 2.37 million people and ordered tens of thousands of fishing boats back to port before the arrival of what Chinese media has dubbed the “King of Storms”.
State-run China Central Television (CCTV) reported the typhoon had killed two people in Guangdong. Mangkhut left large expanses in the north of the main Philippine island of Luzon underwater as fierce winds tore trees from the ground and rain unleashed dozens of landslides.
Hong Kong weather authorities issued their maximum alert for the storm, which hit the city with gusts of more than 230 kilometres per hour (142 mph) and left 213 people injured, according to government figures.
As the storm passed south of Hong Kong, trees were snapped in half and roads blocked, while some windows in tower blocks were smashed and skyscrapers swayed, as they are designed to do in intense gales.
The Philippines was just beginning to count the cost of Typhoon Mangkhut which hit northern Luzon on Saturday. The death toll jumped to 59 on Sunday evening, police said, as more landslide victims were discovered.
Authorities said they would continue efforts in the morning to dig out a group of two dozen miners who are feared dead after their bunkhouse was hit by a landslide near the northern city of Baguio.
In the town of Baggao the typhoon demolished houses, tore off roofs and downed power lines. Some roads were cut off by landslides and many remained submerged.
Farms across northern Luzon, which produces much of the nation’s rice and corn, were swamped by muddy floodwater, their crops ruined just a month before harvest.
“We’re already poor and then this happened to us. We have lost hope,” 40-year-old Mary Anne Baril, whose corn and rice crops were spoilt, told AFP. “We have no other means to survive,” she said tearfully.
Watch out! A crane at a building under construction near Mong Kok, Hong Kong, collapsed when the super #TyphoonMangkhut hit the city on September 16. No one was injured, media reported, citing the developer. pic.twitter.com/ZF1Gc7ZUqM
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) September 16, 2018
Typhoon Mangkhut's fierce winds have torn off roofs and caused partial building collapses in Hong Kong.
Authorities have warned of the threat of storm surges and flooding from torrential rain: https://t.co/LwGUzb3dZN pic.twitter.com/N67Jie2B3W
— CNN (@CNN) September 16, 2018