HONG KONG // Hong Kong shut down on Tuesday as Typhoon Nida brought violent winds and torrential rain, with hundreds of flights cancelled and the stock market, schools and businesses closed.
The typhoon headed across southern China after gusts up to 151 kilometres-per-hour whipped the city and rain lashed down during the night, with authorities warning of floods and landslides.
Streets were deserted on Tuesday morning as school was suspended and workers stayed at home, with buses and trains operating only a very limited service.
The bamboo scaffolding that is the hallmark of construction sites in the city hung in tatters around some buildings.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled after the storm swept past Hong Kong late Monday evening.
An airport authority spokesman said only 325 flights would run between 6am and 9pm local time (2am to 5pm UAE). On a normal day, the airport would handle about 1,100 flights.
More than 150 flights were cancelled on Monday as Nida approached, leaving stranded passengers to sleep on the floor in the departure hall.
“I came here at 6am but the counters have closed ... there have been no notifications at all,” one passenger bound for Australia told Now TV.
Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific and its subsidiary Dragonair cancelled all of their flights in and out of Hong Kong for 16 hours, from 10pm Monday until 2pm Tuesday.
The stock market shut for the morning and more than 200 people sought refuge in government shelters as the rain poured down.
But dedicated fans of new augmented reality game Pokemon Go, which has many glued to their smartphones even more than usual, wrapped up in waterproofs to keep hunting monsters.
Hong Kong’s observatory said winds would “moderate gradually” through the morning and that they may downgrade the Typhoon 8 signal after midday.
Southern China was bracing as Nida moved inland on Tuesday, with the city of Guangzhou issuing its first-ever red storm alert.
Anyone living in the typhoon’s projected path was told to prepare three days’ worth of food and other essentials, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
“It’s the strongest typhoon to hit the Pearl River Delta since 1983 and will bring severe flooding,” Xinhua cited local official He Guoqing as saying.
The UAE consulate in Guangzhou told Emiratis in China to find safe places for shelter.
The cities of Zhuhai and Shanwei in Guangdong province also issued red alerts — the highest in China’s four-tier, colour-coded warning system. Shenzhen, where Xinhua reported the storm hit at 03:30am, issued a yellow one, the third most severe.
All work, production, and classes in Guangzhou are suspended during the alert. Members of the public have been advised to stay indoors, Xinhua reported.
The Guangzhou Railway Corporation said all trains departing from Guangdong would be cancelled on Tuesday, with hundreds of thousands of passengers affected.
More than 220 flights out of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai airports were cancelled before the storm hit Tuesday, the Sohu news portal said.
Nearly 2,000 workers constructing the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge were evacuated and more than 2,000 others working on an offshore oil platform were relocated, Xinhua said.
Nida brought strong winds and torrential rains to the northern Philippines over the weekend, while southern China has already been hard-hit by storms this summer.
* Agence France-Presse
