Typhoon Noul, which triggered a No 9 signal on Sunday, made the third-closest approach to Hong Kong by a major storm this century, but it caused relatively minor damage in the city despite violent winds rattling buildings throughout the night. It was the first No 9 signal issued since Super Typhoon Ragasa last September, which came within 100km (62 miles) of the city. Noul came within 80km, making it the third closest after Saola at 40km in 2023, and both Hato and Wipha at 60km in 2017 and 2025,...
The No 8 storm signal will remain in force at least until noon, the Hong Kong Observatory has said, with more than 700 flights and over 190 cross-border high-speed rail services cancelled on Sunday as Typhoon Noul batters the city. “Noul is moving steadily into inland Guangdong and weakening progressively, but gales are still affecting many places over Hong Kong, with occasional storm-force winds offshore and over high ground,” the weather forecaster said on Sunday. “The gale or storm signal No...
A tropical depression near the Philippines could intensify into a typhoon and move closer to Hong Kong over the weekend, with a possible landfall less than 400km (249 miles) east of the city, the forecaster has said. The Hong Kong Observatory said on Thursday that the tropical depression had formed over waters east of the Philippines and was expected to move west-northwest at about 25 km/h (15.5mph). “The tropical depression over the seas east of the Philippines will enter the northeastern part...
Typhoon Bavi made landfall in eastern China on Saturday night, the second major storm to hit the country in a week, causing thousands of flight and train cancellations while more than 2.4 million people were evacuated from areas in the path of the storm. More than 2,800 flights were likely to be cancelled by Chinese airlines as of 8pm on Saturday, the state news agency Xinhua reported. Shanghai’s Pudong and Hongqiao airports were set to cancel over 650 flights, about 30 per cent of their...
Authorities across eastern China have stepped up their emergency preparations and cancelled hundreds of flights as Typhoon Bavi, the ninth storm of the season, intensified overnight and barrelled towards the coast on Saturday. The storm is forecast to make landfall between Taizhou in Zhejiang province and Fuding in Fujian province in the early hours of Sunday, packing winds of up to 45 metres per second (148 feet per second), according to the National Meteorological Centre (NMC). In its 6am...
Dozens of outbound flights from Hong Kong to Taiwan, mainland China and Japan originally scheduled for later this week have been cancelled due to Super Typhoon Bavi, with some local carriers offering special arrangements for affected passengers. A South China Morning Post check found that more than 40 flights – operated by Cathay Pacific Airways, HK Express, Hong Kong Airlines and Greater Bay Airlines – had been cancelled and 10 delayed to Sunday. The affected routes span destinations ranging...
A total of 21 people out of 33 have died and seven injured in a landslide in northwestern China, as typhoon, flooding and other geological disasters continue to ravage the country. The victims, who were mostly woodworkers hired to trim trees in Longnan, Gansu province, were buried on Tuesday. Local government said in a press conference that as of Wednesday morning, everyone involved in the incident had been rescued. Rescue parties are continuing to search for those trapped in unprecedented...
Villagers whose families have been stranded told the BBC they are struggling to get food and help.
The storm system is expected to reach landfall on Monday morning.
People in Guam and the Northern Marianas moved to emergency evacuation centres and made last-minute preparations on Sunday, hours before a “super typhoon” was projected to bulldoze through the US Pacific territories. Super Typhoon Bavi was forecast to roar westwards over the area at around 10.00am (0000 GMT) on Monday with winds of 260 kilometres (160 miles) per hour – equivalent to a category 5 hurricane – and gusts of up to 315kph. The National Weather Service (NWS) called the typhoon “very...
The storm is forecast to bring winds in excess of 160mph and waves nearly 11m high when it makes landfall on Monday.
When the ground shook off Iwate prefecture at 9pm on Wednesday, the magnitude 6.0 jolt – the latest in a series of sizeable tremors – barely registered in a country still mopping up after two powerful typhoons and bracing for a fresh bout of torrential rain and landslides. Natural disasters have long been a fact of life in Japan, where schoolchildren rehearse earthquake evacuations the way other nations hold fire drills. Every September 1, in a ritual as much of collective memory as civil...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong’s weather forecaster will issue the No 1 typhoon signal on Thursday, potentially marking the city’s first storm of the year, as a tropical depression approaches. The Hong Kong Observatory said the storm was expected to enter within 800km (497 miles) of the city later on Wednesday, before moving towards the vicinity of Hainan Island and Beibu Wan,...