Hong Kong has issued its third-highest storm warning as Super Typhoon Ragasa tracks toward the financial hub with fierce winds, which could potentially be the most damaging storm since Mangkhut in 2018.
The typhoon is packing top sustained winds of 220 kilometers (137 miles) per hour, according to the local weather agency, which is equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. The system was 380 kilometers southeast of the city as of 2 p.m. local time.
Ragasa has caused major flight disruptions, a suspension of school classes and business activities across southern China after skirting northern Philippines on Monday. Hong Kong’s railway operator increased its train and bus services to ease the commuter rush, and government workers are being sent home.
The Hong Kong Observatory, the local weather agency, said it would consider raising the storm warning beyond the current level — dubbed signal No. 8 — later Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning. The most severe alert, signal No. 10, means hurricane-force winds are present or expected.
Ragasa has forced some conferences and forums scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday online, including a gathering on fixed income and currencies, while several delegates have pulled out of an aviation conference. Loan bankers also rushed to get paperwork physically signed to keep deals moving along.
In 2018, Mangkhut brought damaging winds and record-breaking storm surges to Hong Kong, with the weather agency estimating it caused total economic losses including insurance claims of HK$4.6 billion ($592 million). The city may see a similar storm surge from Ragasa, according to forecasters.
“The only thing that will stop this storm is land,” the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said in an advisory. Ragasa will slam Hong Kong with gale- to storm-force winds as the storm passes to the south of the city, it added.
Passenger flights in and out of Hong Kong will be suspended for 36 hours from 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Almost 50% of the 1,098 passenger and cargo flights due to depart and arrive at the airport today have already been axed, according to data compiled by Webb-site.com.
Airports in Shenzhen and Macau will also close for an unspecified period, and all rail services in China’s Guangdong province will be suspended on Wednesday. Cities including Zhuhai, Jiangmen and Foshan — the country’s “aluminum capital” — also suspended classes and work.
Across Hong Kong, businesses and residents are taking steps to prepare, with some grocery stores cleared of food items such as fresh vegetables. Many shop and apartment windows are also taped up with giant X’s, a practice thought to protect against flying debris, but a measure the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says is a waste of time and tape.
In Taiwan, thousands of households lost power, and offices and schools were closed in some southern cities, while nearly 25,000 people were evacuated across the Philippines’ main Luzon island. Ragasa skirted the northern part of the archipelago and is now churning in the South China Sea.
The storm is expected to track toward Vietnam after clipping southern China, and the Southeast Asian nation has put more than 300,000 military personnel, 8,000 vehicles and six aircraft on standby for the cyclone.
–With assistance from Miaojung Lin, Manolo Serapio Jr., Yasufumi Saito, Kiuyan Wong, Francesca Stevens, Qianwei Zhang and Iris Ouyang.
(Recasts with details on storm warning.)
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