Asia’s most powerful storm this year made landfall in northern Vietnam on Saturday, the weather agency said, killing at least four people after passing through China’s Hainan island and the Philippines.
Super Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam’s northern island districts around 1 p.m. (0600 GMT), generating winds of up to 160 km/h (99 mph) near its center, after losing power from its peak of 234 km/h (145 mph) in Hainan a day earlier.
The government said four people had died and 78 others were injured in the typhoon as of 5 p.m. At least a dozen others were missing at sea, according to state media.
Yagi had already claimed the lives of at least two people in Hainan and 16 people in the Philippines, the first country to be hit, having formed to the east of the archipelago earlier in the week.
The coastal city of Haiphong in Vietnam, an industrial hub of 2 million people that is home to factories for foreign multinationals and local carmaker VinFast, was among the hardest hit by winds reaching speeds of 90 km/h.
As the typhoon approached, the city experienced widespread power outages on Saturday, authorities said, as did at least three other northern provinces.
In Haiphong, strong winds shattered windows and waves reached up to three metres high as they hit the coast, a Reuters witness said.
Metal sheets were blown away by the wind, as seen in images and videos broadcast by local media. The government said thousands of trees had fallen and many houses had been damaged in northern Vietnam.
In Hainan, which has a population of more than 10 million, the storm downed trees, flooded roads and cut power to more than 800,000 homes.
Vietnam has evacuated more than 50,000 people from coastal cities and deployed 450,000 troops, the government said.
It also suspended operations for several hours at four airports on Saturday, including Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport, the busiest in the north, which cancelled more than 300 flights.
High schools have also been closed in 12 northern provinces, including the capital Hanoi, which has a population of 8.5 million.
Authorities in the capital suspended public transport, buses and two elevated metro lines on Saturday afternoon, state media reported. The weather agency warned of the risk of heavy flooding in the city centre.
Hanoi resident Nguyen Manh Quan, 40, said: “The wind is strong enough to knock a person over,” while Dang Van Phuong, also 40, said: “I have never seen a storm like this, you can’t drive in these winds.”
Typhoons are becoming stronger, fueled by warming oceans amid climate change, scientists say.
Last week, Typhoon Shanshan struck southwestern Japan, the most powerful storm to hit the country in decades.
Yagi is named after the Japanese word for goat and the constellation Capricorn.
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