Typhoon Ragasa leaves 17 dead in Taiwan and makes landfall in southern China

Beijing.- The number of deaths in Taiwan due to the floods caused by super typhoon Ragasa rose to 17, while this Wednesday it made landfall in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where nearly two million people were evacuated and much of the economic activity was paralyzed. In Taiwan, the overflow of a natural lake in the Matai’an stream bed flooded Guangfu Township between 14:50 and 16:30 local time (06:50-08:30 GMT) on Tuesday, after the natural dam formed by sediments gave way. According to the Central Emergency Operations Command, only in Guangfu are 17 deaths, 32 injuries, and 17 missing persons counted, while 135 residents were rescued alive in the last few hours. The island’s prime minister, Cho Jung-tai, asked to investigate why the evacuation orders “were not fully complied with” despite the lake being monitored since July.

Hong Kong, paralyzed

Ragasa, considered the most intense tropical cyclone of this year globally, passed through Hong Kong early this Wednesday morning with winds of up to 200 km/h and torrential rains, paralyzing the city, causing floods and activating the maximum meteorological alert. The local Meteorological Office raised the typhoon signal to level 10, the maximum, with suspension of commercial activities, public transport and non-essential services, and urged the population to stay in their homes. A yellow rain signal was also issued due to rainfall that flooded streets in the east and south, while waves of up to four meters hit the coast. Damage was recorded in homes and urban furniture due to falling trees and detached objects. By local noon on Wednesday, 62 injuries had been recorded, including a woman and her five-year-old son swept away by the sea on Tuesday and hospitalized in serious condition. The Hong Kong government set up 49 shelters that accommodated 791 people.

Impact on Southeast China

The typhoon made landfall around 17:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Hailing Island, belonging to the city of Yangjiang, with sustained winds of up to 150 km/h, according to the Meteorological Observatory of Guangzhou. It is expected to continue moving west in the next few hours and to gradually weaken.

Authorities preemptively evacuated more than 1.89 million residents from risk areas in the province, which maintains an orange alert for typhoon and a red alert for storm surge.

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Almost a quarter of those evacuations correspond to Shenzhen, which displaced 400,000 people and has kept its airport closed since Tuesday night. In the city of Canton, with some 18 million inhabitants, the Government is applying what are known as the ‘five suspensions’: suspension of classes, work, production, transport and commercial activity, with essential services operational and 1,570 shelters enabled. Typhoons are recurring phenomena in southeastern China and Taiwan during the summer and autumn, when the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean favor the formation of cyclones which, on occasion, cause significant damage and disruptions to economic activity.