Tropical Storm Fausto looks like it will pass north of the Hawaiian Islands over the next couple of days with limited impact. But on the other side of the Pacific, more than a dozen people have been killed in a storm that moved across the Philippines and slammed parts of China.
Intense rainfall again pounded parts of southeast China Tuesday, as the most powerful storm to hit the country this year continued to grind its way north. Typhoon Noul has weakened to a tropical storm, but high winds battered coastal regions from Hong Kong and Guangdong through Fujian province and inland to neighboring provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said the storm forced the evacuation of more than 800,000 people in Guangdong province alone. Some 2,000 travelers were stranded at the Hong Kong airport over the weekend, with about 350 flights cancelled just on Sunday.
It is prime time for typhoons in Hong Kong — the season stretches from May to November and peaks between July and September.
On Monday, safety concerns were the focus of a news conference pulling together faculty from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the former director of the Hong Kong Observatory and the chief policy researcher at Friends of the Earth Hong Kong.
They warned that the city is likely to face further extreme weather this season because of an intensifying El Niño pattern. Impacts could include more typhoons, as well as a rise in heat-related deaths.
