Hong Kong Braces for Super Typhoon

HONG KONG—Hong Kong is bracing for the impact of Super Typhoon Usagi with one of the strongest storms in the region this year expected to reach the city on Sunday.
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., which dominates traffic to and from Hong Kong, said that while flight operations remained normal Friday it expected delays on Sunday and Monday. On its website, it urged passengers to check with the airline before traveling.
“The bad weather is expected to disrupt operations to and from Hong Kong late Sunday” to Sept. 23, the airline said on its website.
On Friday, the typhoon swept northward and toward Southern China with winds of 205 kilometers per hour, brushing past the northern tip of the Philippines where some residents of coastal villages were evacuated. Weather forecaster Fernando Cada in the Philippines said the highest storm warning was raised for the first time since 2010 as Usagi gathered strength and moved toward Luzon Strait—the channel that separates the Batanes group of islands in the country’s far north from Luzon.
Relief goods and medicines were positioned in several areas and government troops were on standby. Authorities in Taiwan, where the storm is expected to hit on Saturday, also issued alerts for flash flooding and storm damage.
The Hong Kong Observatory forecast the typhoon to directly reach the territory and neighboring Guangdong in China on Sunday.
“By that time, the weather will deteriorate significantly with high winds and rough seas,” the observatory said on its website. “Usagi is a mature tropical cyclone and may become the strongest storm affecting Hong Kong so far this year,” it said.
The weather bureau’s charting forecasts the typhoon to be downgraded to ‘severe’ by the time it hits the former British colony and it said the storm’s course may change direction.
If the observatory issues a level 8 storm warning—the third-highest warning level in the city’s system—all markets, offices, schools and nonessential government departments must shut down, causing severe disruption in one of Asia’s busiest financial hubs.
Typhoon Usagi has a 900-kilometer diameter and forecasters warn it could generate storm surges that may reach as high as five meters.
In China, officials issued a ‘yellow alert,’ the third-highest warning in the country’s four-tier system and the State Oceanic Administration issued an ‘I-class’ emergency response, the highest level of its own warning system, Xinhua reported on its website.
A super typhoon is the most intense of tropical cyclones, with a sustained wind speed of 114 miles an hour or above.
Hong Kong is frequently battered by typhoons. In August, hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed and schools, banks and the local stock market shut as Typhoon Utor brushed the city.
-Cris Larano in Manila contributed to this article.
Write to Enda Curran at enda.curran@wsj.com

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