BANGKOK (AP) — Typhoon Matmo strengthened ahead of making landfall Sunday in China, prompting the government to evacuate some 347,000 people from the southern provinces of Guangdong and Hainan.
The typhoon had maximum sustained wind speeds of 151 kph (94 mph) on Sunday morning, according to China’s National Meteorological Center. It hit Zhanjiang in Guangdong around mid-afternoon Sunday. The weather authority issued a red-level typhoon warning, the highest in its system.
Hainan, which is also in the pathway of the storm, canceled flights and shut down public transport and businesses starting Saturday in preparation for the storm. The province also preemptively evacuated 197,856 people, according to state media, The Paper.
Matmo directly hit the southwestern parts of Guangdong, where 151,000 people evacuated, The Paper reported. Meanwhile, local media aired footage showing large waves washing seawater onto roads in villages by the coast in Guangdong’s Zhanjiang.
Authorities are also warning of heavy rain, with rainfall expected to hit 100 to 249 mm (3.93 to 9.8 inches) in some parts of Guangdong and Hainan.
In the region of Macau, which is not in the typhoon’s direct path, classes and tutoring sessions were canceled due to weather conditions.
Matmao had passed through the Philippines earlier this week. While there were no reports of casualties or major damage, the storm affected more than 220,000 people in five northern agricultural plains and mountainous regions. Nearly 35,000 of them either moved to emergency shelters or houses of relatives away from landslide- or flood-prone villages, disaster-response officials said on Sunday.
The storm will then move westward and north, toward northern Vietnam and China’s Yunnan province.
Matmo blew across northern Philippines
The storm will then move westward and north, toward northern Vietnam and China’s Yunnan province.
Matmo, locally known as Paolo, was the 16th tropical cyclone to hit the Philippines this year. The Southeast Asian archipelago nation is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms a year and lies on the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire,” making it one of the countries most prone to natural disasters.
It did not directly affect the central province of Cebu further south where a 6.9-magnitude earthquake Tuesday night killed at least 68 people and injured more than 550 others, many in the coastal city of Bogo, which was hit hard along with outlying towns.
More than 5,000 houses were damaged, and some residents were staying in parks, grassy clearings and on sidewalks despite sporadic rain because aftershocks left them too fearful to return to their homes.
“We can’t blame people if they refuse to return home … there were too many aftershocks and some were really strong,” Public Works Secretary Vivencio Dizon said in a news conference in Manila. “They don’t want to go anywhere with a roof.”
About 1,000 tents would be set up with the help of the Red Cross in Bogo and outlying towns starting Saturday for thousands of residents, Dizon said.
An earlier storm, Bualoi, caused at least 37 deaths and displaced thousands in the Philippines last week before hitting Vietnam, where 49 people died and economic damages were estimated at $485 million.
Super Typhoon Ragasa, which at its peak was the world’s strongest tropical cyclone of the year, caused several deaths in the Philippines as it passed by the country before landfall in southern China.
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