[Source: The North West Star]
Super Typhoon Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, is churning towards the northern coast of Vietnam after tearing through China’s southern island province of Hainan with lightning, rain and violent winds.
Yagi made landfall in Hainan on Friday, packing maximum sustained winds of 234km/h near its centre, downing trees and flooding roads. Power supply to more than 800,000 homes was cut.
No injuries or deaths have been reported, but the island province of more than 10 million people remained paralysed on Saturday, with all public transportation links still broken.
Yagi formed over the sea to the east of the Philippine archipelago on September 1. On gaining strength, it became a tropical storm and swept across Luzon, the most populous island in the Philippines, killing at least 16 people and injuring 13.
The storm grew dramatically stronger late in the week, becoming the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone in 2024 after the Category 5 Atlantic hurricane Beryl, and the most severe in the Pacific basin this year.
On Saturday, Yagi was spinning towards northern Vietnam over the Gulf of Tonkin.
Maximum wind speeds had eased slightly to the levels of a Category 3 typhoon from Category 4, coming in at 187km/h, according to Chinese meteorological authorities.
