MANILA: The Chinese city of Shenzhen began preparing to evacuate 400,000 people while residents of the northern Philippines sought shelter from gale-force winds on Monday as Super Typhoon Ragasa continued on a collision course with southern China. The typhoon made landfall on the Philippines' Calayan Island, part of the sparsely populated Babuyan chain, at 3:00 pm, according to the Philippine weather service.
As of 5:00 pm, maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometres per hour were reported at the storm's centre, with gusts reaching as high as 295 kph, the national weather service said. Just over 10,000 Filipinos were evacuated across the country, with schools and government offices closed on Monday in the Manila region and across 29 other provinces.
A much larger operation will take place in China's Shenzhen, where authorities said late on Sunday they planned to move hundreds of thousands of people from coastal and low-lying regions. Multiple other cities in Guangdong province announced classes and work would be cancelled, and public transportation would be suspended because of the typhoon. — AFP
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