Super Typhoon Ragasa pounded Taiwan, Hong Kong and China before moving into Vietnam on Thursday night, though as a much-weakened storm.
At its peak Ragasa had mean wind speeds of 165mph as it moved to the south of Taiwan, where it brought significant heavy rain resulting in 17 deaths as a barrier lake burst.
The storms then moved westwards just to the south of Hong Kong, before making landfall on Wednesday in the Guangdong province of China, with mean wind speeds of 150mph – equivalent to a category 4 hurricane.
This brought significant disruption as 90 people were injured in Hong Kong as the storm brought 197mm of rain across Tuesday and Wednesday, while in China millions had to evacuate in the cities of Shenzhen, Chaozhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Foshan.
Meanwhile, another storm, named Bualoi, has developed across the western Pacific and is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon on Friday before moving into the southern end of the Philippines’ largest island, Luzon. Widespread flooding and landslides are possible and as a result schools have been shut and flights cancelled in the region. This storm will come just days after Ragasa moved to the north of the country, resulting in the death of nine people in the archipelago.
On the other side of the world, the Atlantic hurricane season has finally become more active with tropical storm Humberto, now situated to the north-east of the Caribbean, named on Thursday, while Gabrielle remains a hurricane with mean wind speeds of 85mph.
Humberto is expected to rapidly strengthen as it gradually moves north-eastwards, and will probably become a hurricane this weekend over the tropical south-east Atlantic.
Meanwhile, Gabrielle moved over the Azores on Thursday night, bringing hurricane conditions to the islands with heavy rain, strong winds and a dangerous storm surge likely as a result.
A third system, just to the north of the Dominican Republic, is also expected to develop in the coming days.
