Vietnam’s northern provinces closed airports and evacuated residents as Typhoon Yagi is set to make landfall on Saturday afternoon after killing two people and injuring nearly 100 others in the Chinese province of Hainan.
Vietnamese meteorological authorities described Yagi as “one of the most powerful typhoons in the region over the past decade”. It has wind speeds between 150-166km/h (93-103m/h), meaning it is at a level 14 or a strong typhoon, state media said.
Yagi is expected to land near the coastal province of Quang Ninh, home to the Unesco World Heritage site Ha Long Bay, known for its many towering limestone islands, where state media said hundreds of cruises had already been cancelled.
The government has issued several alerts and those vulnerable to floods or landslides were evacuated. Four airports were shut, including in the capital Hanoi and the port city of Haiphong which is home to large factories, including EV maker VinFast and Apple suppliers Pegatron.
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Authorities had pruned trees in Hanoi to make them less susceptible to falling, but wind and rain knocked over several along with billboards in northern cities ahead of the typhoon landing.
Local media also reported that many moored boats were swept out to sea.
Yagi struck the Chinese city of Wenchang in Hainan province on Friday afternoon with wind speeds of up to about 245k/h (152m/h) near its centre. Local authorities said on Saturday the typhoon left two people dead and injured at least 92 others.
Some 420,000 Hainan residents were relocated before the typhoon’s landfall. Another half a million people in Guangdong province were evacuated before Yagi made a second landfall in the province’s Xuwen County on Friday night.
Haikou’s meteorological observatory downgraded its typhoon signal from red to orange on Saturday, as the typhoon moved further away from the city.
Before leaving Hong Kong, Yagi forced more than 270 people to seek refuge at temporary government shelters on Friday, and more than 100 flights in the city were cancelled because of the typhoon. Heavy rain and strong winds felled dozens of trees, and trading on the stock market, bank services and schools were halted.
Yagi was still a storm when it blew out of the northwestern Philippines into the South China Sea on Wednesday, leaving at least 16 people dead and 17 others missing mostly in landslides and widespread flooding and affecting more than two million people across the archipelago.
More than 47,600 people were displaced from their homes in Philippine provinces and classes, work, inter-island ferry services and domestic flights were disrupted for days, including in the densely populated capital region Manila. – AP