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Schools shut, flights cancelled in southern China

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Hong Kong stock exchange and businesses closed

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China sends task forces to guide flood and typhoon

prevention

(Adds milestone in para 1, latest death toll in the Philippines

in para 3, Hong Kong lowers alert in para 12)

By Farah Master

HONG KONG, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Powerful gales and heavy

rain from the deadly Super Typhoon Yagi drenched southern China

on Friday, with schools shut for a second day and flights

cancelled as Asia's strongest storm this year headed for

landfall along the coast of Hainan province.

Packing maximum sustained winds of 245 km per hour (152 mph)

near its centre, Yagi registers as the world's second-most

powerful tropical cyclone in 2024 so far, after the Category 5

Atlantic hurricane Beryl, and the most severe in the Pacific

basin this year.

After more than doubling in strength since killing 16 people

in the northern Philippines earlier this week, Yagi's eye was

about 100 kilometres (62 miles) offshore Hainan as of midday,

with no loss of wind speed overnight.

Yagi is expected to make landfall along China's coast

between Wenchang in Hainan and Leizhou in Guangdong province

from Friday afternoon. It is then predicted to hit Vietnam and

Laos over the weekend.

Vietnam's Civil Aviation Authority said four airports in the

north, including Hanoi's Noi Bai International, would be closed

on Saturday due to the storm.

Winds and rain were accompanied by powerful thunder and

lightening across the region overnight and on Friday morning.

"I'm worried about this typhoon. It could destroy months of

hard work," said Qizhao, a banana farmer at the village of

Gaozhou in Guangdong, adding that villagers were reinforcing

their trees with poles to protect them from the wind.

Transport links across southern China were mostly shuttered

on Friday with many flights cancelled in Hainan, Guangdong, Hong

Kong and Macau. The world's longest sea crossing, the main

bridge linking Hong Kong with Macau and Zhuhai in Guangdong, was

also closed.

Many businesses, including factories, were also shut.

In the financial hub of Hong Kong, the stock exchange was

shuttered while schools remained closed on Friday.

The city of over 7 million people lowered its typhoon

warning by a notch after midday, with winds expected to weaken

gradually as Yagi moves away, allowing businesses to reopen.

Intense rainbands associated with Yagi will still bring

heavy squally showers to the territory.

RARE LANDFALL

Yagi is set to be the most severe storm to land in Hainan

since 2014, when Typhoon Rammasun slammed into the island

province as a Category Five tropical cyclone. Rammasun killed 88

people in Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan and caused

economic losses of more than 44 billion yuan ($6.25 billion).

Formed over the warm seas east of the Philippines and a

similar path as Rammasun did, Yagi is expected to arrive in

China as a Category Four typhoon, ushering in winds strong

enough to overturn vehicles, uproot trees and severely damage

roads, bridges and buildings.

In Hainan's capital Haikou, streets were deserted as people

stayed indoors, photographs on social media showed.

Its projected landfall in Hainan is rare, as most typhoons

landing on the duty-free island are classified as weak. From

1949 to 2023, 106 typhoons landed in Hainan but only nine were

classified as super typhoons.

Typhoons are becoming stronger, fuelled by warmer oceans,

amid climate change, scientists say. Last week, Typhoon Shanshan

slammed into southwestern Japan, the strongest storm to hit the

country in decades.

Yagi, which strengthened into a super typhoon on Wednesday

night, is the Japanese word for goat and for the constellation

of Capricornus, a mythical creature that is half goat, half

fish.

($1 = 7.0902 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Additional reporting by Ryan Woo, Liam Mo and the Beijing

newsroom and Mikhail Flores in Manila; Editing by Lincoln Feast

and Miral Fahmy)