Super Typhoon Yachi, Asia's strongest storm this year, made landfall on China's Hainan island on Friday, bringing ferocious winds and heavy rains that caused widespread power outages, paralysed the tourist destination and forced the evacuation of about one million people in southern China.
With maximum sustained winds of 234 kilometers per hour near its center, Yagi is the world's second-most powerful tropical cyclone so far this year after Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane Beryl, and the Pacific's most intense typhoon of 2024.
The YAGI, which has more than doubled in strength since killing 16 people in the northern Philippines earlier this week, slammed into the city of Wenchang in Hainan province on Friday afternoon.
Just over an hour after Yagi arrived, Hainan province experienced a power outage, affecting 830,000 households in the province, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The provincial electricity bureau has organized a 7,000-person emergency team to begin repair work as soon as conditions permit, according to Xinhua. By Friday evening, power had been restored to 260,000 homes.
Ahead of Yagi's arrival, flights and ferries had been canceled, businesses had been closed and the island's more than 10 million residents had been told to stay home, on a coastal island known for its sandy beaches and luxury hotels.
The typhoon has already shut down schools, businesses and transport links in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong province, and is expected to hit airports in Vietnam, as well as Laos over the weekend.
On Friday night, Typhoon Yagi crossed the Qiongzhou Strait north of Hainan province and made a second landfall in Guangdong province, with wind speeds still exceeding 200 kph. By midday in Guangdong province, more than 574,500 people had been evacuated from risk areas, more than two-thirds of them in the city of Zhanjiang.
In Hong Kong's financial centre, schools remained closed and the stock exchange was shut.
Hong Kong's airport authority said services were nearly back to normal after 50 flights were cancelled on Thursday, and the city of more than 7 million people downgraded its typhoon warning by one level shortly after midday as Typhoon Yagi moved westwards towards Vietnam.
The world's longest sea bridge, linking Hong Kong with Macau and Zhuhai in Guangdong province, had been closed since Thursday but reopened on Friday afternoon.
Typhoon Yagi is the most violent storm to make landfall in Hainan since Typhoon Lammasun struck the province as a Category 5 tropical cyclone in 2014. Lammasun killed 88 people and caused economic losses of more than 44 billion yuan ($6.25 billion) in Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan provinces.
Typhoon Yagi, which formed over the warm waters east of the Philippines and followed a similar path to Lamason, reached China as a Category 4 typhoon, packing winds strong enough to overturn vehicles, uproot trees, and cause severe damage to roads, bridges, and buildings.
No deaths have been reported in Hainan so far.
Scientists say warmer ocean waters caused by climate change are making typhoons stronger. Last week, Typhoon Shanshan struck southwestern Japan, the strongest storm to hit the country in decades.
