Typhoon Hato, a maximum category 10 storm, slammed into Hong Kong Wednesday lashing the Asian financial hub with wind and rain that uprooted trees and forced most businesses to close, while in some places big waves flooded seaside streets.
There were reports of 34 people injured in Hong Kong while in the city of Macau, across the Pearl River estuary, three people were killed, authorities there said.
Flights canceled, markets closed
In Hong Kong, more than 450 flights were canceled, financial markets suspended and schools closed as Hato bore down, the first category 10 storm to hit the city since 2012.
“I’ve never seen one like this,” Garrett Quigley, a longtime resident of Lantau island to the west of the city, said of the storm. “Cars are half submerged and roads are impassable with flooding and huge trees down. It’s crazy.”
Many skyscrapers in the heart of Hong Kong were empty and dark as office workers stayed at home.
Hato churned up Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour and triggered large swells and big waves on some of the city’s most popular beaches, with serious flooding in low-lying areas.
In residential districts like Heng Fa Chuen on densely populated Hong Kong island, waves smashed against the sides of oceanfront buildings and surged over a promenade, swamping roads and vehicles parked nearby.
Construction cranes swayed at the tops of skyscrapers, windows imploded and nearly 200 trees were uprooted, while some people used canoes to venture out into flooded streets.
Authorities downgraded the storm to a category eight by midafternoon.
High seas
The storm also caused a power blackout across most of the gambling hub of Macau for about two hours, residents said, with disruption to mobile phone and internet networks.
The former Portuguese colony’s casinos, however, had backup power, two casino executives told Reuters.
The storm also made landfall in China’s Guangdong province, in Zhuhai city adjacent to Macau, China’s Xinhua state news agency.
Numerous flights and trains were canceled in Guangdong province, with Shenzhen’s International Airport particularly badly hit.
Thousands of residents along the Chinese coast were evacuated and fishing vessels were called back to port.
Maximum winds near Hato’s center were recorded at a destructive 155 kph (95 mph).
