Super Typhoon Yagi heads for southern China, shutting schools and cancelling flights

Powerful gales and heavy rain from Super Typhoon Yagi drenched southern China on Friday, with schools shut for a second day and flights cancelled as one of the strongest storms to hit Asia this year headed for landfall along Hainan's tropical coast.

Packing maximum sustained winds of 245 km per hour (152 mph) near its eye, Yagi registers as the world's second-most powerful tropical cyclone in 2024 so far, after the Category 5 Atlantic hurricane Beryl.

More than doubling in strength since devastating the northern Philippines earlier this week, Yagi is expected to make landfall along China's coast from Wenchang on the island of Hainan, to Leizhou, in Guangdong province from Friday afternoon.

It is then predicted to hit Vietnam and Laos.

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, have also shut as a precautionary measure.

INTENSE RAIN

In the financial hub of Hong Kong, the stock exchange was shuttered while schools remained closed on Friday.

The typhoon 8 signal, the third highest, would be lowered by 12.40pm, Hong Kong's observatory said, with winds over the city expected to weaken gradually as Yagi moves away, allowing businesses to begin to reopening.

Intense rainbands associated with Yagi will still bring heavy squally showers to the territory, it said, warning residents to stay away from the shoreline.

China's government sent task forces to Guangdong and Hainan to guide flood and typhoon prevention, official news agency Xinhua said as authorities issued high risk warnings for geological disasters in northern Shanxi, southern Guangdong and most areas of Hainan island.

In Hainan's capital Haikou, streets were deserted as people stayed indoors, photographs on social media showed.

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.

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.