Typhoon Hagupit slams into Guangdong by Matt Taylor
Typhoon Hagupit churned past Hong Kong on Tuesday night, uprooting trees and causing flash floods in a number of low lying areas. Tracking towards China, the typhoon ploughed into a densely populated area in the south of the country on Wednesday, prompting the state Meteorological Administration to issue an ‘urgent red alert’; its highest level warning.
The typhoon has been described as the worst to hit Guangdong in a decade, with more than 100,000 people having to be evacuated before it made landfall on Wednesday morning. The storm was downgraded from a category 4 to a 3 as it hit land, but still drenched the region with heavy rain and strong winds.
Typhoons are common to this region, gathering intensity from the warm waters of the Pacific as they head towards Japan, and the Philippines. Forecasters are keeping an eye on another storm system which has developed in the eastern Philippines. It is expected to strengthen as it heads west towards China, taking a similar path to Hagupit.
