Super Typhoon Mangkhut: Devastating storm to MAINTAIN category 5 status as nears Hong Kong
SUPER Typhoon Mangkhut is the strongest tropical storm that has formed on the planet this year and looks to maintain category 5 status as it approaches Hong Kong and the Philippines.
By KATIE WESTON
Express.co.uk
Fri, Sep 14, 2018
Super Typhoon Mangkhut is threatening to hit Hong Kong at a category 5 status, swirling just off the country’s coast.
Before bearing down on Hong Kong, the barreling storm will sweep through the Philippines and southern Taiwan.
It is expected to make landfall on the northern tip of Luzon island, the northern Philippines, this evening UK time.
The storm has already torn through the island of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, with torrential rain and strong winds causing mass destruction, leaving hundreds of people homeless.
Mangkhut, the Thai word for the fruit mangosteen, has a diameter of about 900 km and is the strongest of 15 storms to have hit the Philippines this year.
The dangerous typhoon is moving with maximum sustained winds of up to 240 mph and could affect more than 43 million people.
Philippine authorities started evacuating thousands of people from coastal areas on Thursday, with medical and emergency teams on standby.
Manuel Mamba, governor of the northeastern province of Cagayan, where schools and offices have been closed, said to a radio station: “What’s happening now is pre-emptive evacuation in certain areas.
“There are no people in the streets as they are preparing for the storm.”
Marilou Cayco, governor of Batanes, a chain of seven remote islands, said that 3,000 families could be “battered”, adding: “I worry especially for houses made of light materials.”
The monstrous storm is being compared with Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated central areas of the archipelago nation in 2013, killing 6,300 people.
Currently, those in the Philippines are most immediately in danger, with many people being uprooted by severe monsoon rains.
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