Heavy rains and powerful winds battered East Asia on Thursday, pressing authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Japan and putting China on alert for its worst floods in years. In the Philippines, power was gradually restored to millions of homes in and around Manila after Typhoon Conson hit the capital harder than expected on Tuesday night. Officials raised the death toll in the Philippines to 37, with 42 missing.
Tropical Storm Risk downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm on Thursday, but the Philippines' weather bureau said it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea and headed towards southern China and northern Vietnam. China's Xinhua news agency said the storm would make landfall in Hainan island's southern resort city of Sanya before moving into Guangdong and Guangxi, bringing heavy rain. More than 24,000 fishing boats have taken shelter in harbours around Hainan and ferry services between the island the mainland will be stopped in the early evening, Xinhua said.
Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Japan in the second half of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or South China Sea before normally weakening over land. Japan's Kyodo news agency said local governments recommended that some 300,000 people be evacuated from their homes, as the Meteorological Agency forecast heavy rain from a separate weather system for the west and east of the country later on Thursday.
TV images showed some houses tilted after being hit by mudslides, swollen rivers and abandoned cars almost submerged in flooded streets. Footage also showed a rescue crew saving a man caught in a fallen tree on a fast-running river. Civil defence chief Benito Ramos said the typhoon had not caused a great deal of damage to rice- and coconut-growing areas near the capital.
Comments
Comments are closed.