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Chinese authorities have called for a “wartime” footing and prepared to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people as one of the world’s strongest storms this year barrelled down on the country’s industrial heartland.
Super Typhoon Ragasa is forecast to pass through China’s Pearl River delta, which is home to some of the country’s biggest technology and manufacturing hubs, on Wednesday morning. Schools, roads and rail lines are being closed.
Weather conditions in the region are expected to deteriorate “rapidly” from Tuesday afternoon, the Hong Kong Observatory said.
A super typhoon is the strongest category of tropical cyclone, with sustained winds of more than 185km an hour. Winds at Ragasa’s centre were as high as 230kph early on Tuesday. They have since moderated to about 220kph, the equivalent of a category 4 hurricane, according to the observatory.
The storm made landfall on the Philippines on Monday, and has prompted warnings as far away as Taiwan.
It will be the ninth to trigger a storm warning in Hong Kong this year. Historically, Hong Kong has recorded an average of six such storms a season, which typically lasts until about mid-November, according to research by the City University of Hong Kong.
The Chinese Communist party secretary for Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, told a meeting on Monday to prepare for “an emergency and wartime state”, according to state media.
“We must resolutely win the hard-fought battle of preparing for this typhoon and exert ourselves in reducing the harm caused to a minimum,” said Huang Kunming.
In Dongguan, an electronics manufacturing hub between the provincial capital Guangzhou and tech megacity Shenzhen, authorities initiated “five cancellations” — schools, production, work, operations and businesses — in phases from Monday afternoon.
Similar measures were under way in Foshan, Zhuhai and Shenzhen, where authorities said they had opened 865 emergency shelters and that 400,000 people would need to be evacuated.
State media reported that provincial authorities ordered high-speed and regular trains to begin phased cancellations, with all rail services suspended by Wednesday.
In Macau, authorities said they would close casinos if the city raised its third-highest typhoon warning, which the meteorological agency said was a “high probability”. A mega bridge between Zhuhai, Macau and Hong Kong was also closed.
Hong Kong’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific said it expected to cancel more than 500 flights between Tuesday and Thursday, although the territory’s airport authority said it would remain open.
School classes in Hong Kong were suspended for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Officials directed supermarket chains, including Walmart, and food delivery platform Meituan to increase supplies of essential goods and refrain from price gouging, according to statements issued by local governments.
Trading on Hong Kong’s stock exchange is set to continue during the storm, under a mechanism introduced last year allowing it to maintain operations under adverse weather events.
Flooding is expected in many areas. Officials said sea levels in coastal areas could reach levels comparable to Typhoon Hato in 2017 and Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018, which inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses in Hong Kong.
Mark Clayton, finance chief at C2W, a manufacturing company in Zhuhai and south China chair of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that during Typhoon Hato, a tree was blown through his office window.
“We’ve locked [the office] down, wrapped the window handles together, moved everything expensive or important . . . away from windows,” he said. “Now we sit back and wait.”
