China Is Lashed by Bigger Storm Than Idalia
Hong Kong draws down shutters as eye of supertyphoon Saola focuses on financial center
HONG KONG—As residents of Florida and South Carolina struggle with the aftermath of storm Idalia, southern China is being lashed by for an even more powerful cyclone.
In the Asian financial hub of Hong Kong, the government took no chances with supertyphoon Saola, raising the city’s storm alert in the early hours Friday, with all schools, the stock market and most public transport closing for the day. After a calm start, winds began to gust strongly by mid-afternoon and government meteorologists issued the highest storm alert at around 8 p.m. local time, the first level-10 typhoon in five years.
After gathering strength in the Pacific Ocean to become a typhoon about a week ago, Saola had left one person dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in the Philippines before grinding toward southern China. Wind speeds topping 130 miles an hour on Friday make Saola a Category 4 cyclone by U.S. standards. Idalia briefly touched that category before battering northern Florida as a Category 3 hurricane.
Hurricanes and typhoons are different names for the same type of rotating storm, depending on where it occurs. Also known as tropical cyclones, they develop over warm ocean waters near the equator. Those that form in the North Atlantic or central and eastern North Pacific are called hurricanes. Those born over the western North Pacific are known to Asia as typhoons.
Saola becomes only the 17th storm to trigger the level-10, hurricane-force gale warning since 1946, according to the Hong Kong Observatory. While deaths are now rare in the city, that storm five years ago caused more than 120 fatalities in the Philippines. Another typhoon, Hanna, affected the main Philippines island of Luzon on Friday.
Warming ocean temperatures are expected to fuel more cyclones. Decades of climate warming and an El Niño pattern that releases heat from the Pacific into the atmosphere have brought Atlantic sea-surface temperatures to a record high this year, according to experts.
An earlier typhoon wreaked havoc in China’s northeast in August, causing torrential rain and widespread flooding in and around the capital, Beijing, that left dozens of people dead and millions more displaced. China’s government earlier warned that changing weather patterns would lead to more flooding in some regions, affecting agriculture.
Saola has a double-eyewall structure, the Hong Kong Observatory said, which was an indication of a particularly intense storm. “Remain where you are if protected and be prepared for destructive winds,” the observatory said, adding that the center of the storm would pass within 25 miles of the city over the next few hours.
As Hong Kong rides out the winds, the observatory warned of flooding caused by heavy rain and a storm surge that would push sea levels to record highs. It predicted the tide in one bay in northeast Hong Kong would be around 13 feet higher than normal.
China’s central government issued its highest typhoon warning on Thursday, ordering the deployment of emergency rescue vessels because of the rough seas.
In Hong Kong Friday, the stock exchange halted trading—a practice that sets it apart from other major bourses. More than 360 flights were canceled. All schools were closed on what would have been the first day of classes for many students.
Authorities in the neighboring tech and manufacturing hub of Shenzhen ordered work, business and market activity to stop late Friday afternoon. All flights from the city’s airport were grounded from midday, while schools were suspended a day earlier.
The world’s longest sea bridge, connecting Hong Kong, mainland China and Macau, closed on Friday afternoon.
The government in Macau, like Hong Kong a special administrative region of China, said it could raise the city’s storm signal to its highest category early Saturday. Officials in the gambling hub were accused of failing to raise alerts in time in 2017, when a typhoon killed 10 people in the city of fewer than 700,000 residents.