Super Typhoon Doksuri targets China as ferry capsize off Manila kills at least 25

TAIPEI – Doksuri regained super typhoon strength on Thursday in its final approach to south-eastern China after pummelling Taiwan and the northern Philippines with rain and strong winds that caused a ferry to capsize near Manila, killing at least 25 people.

The approaching typhoon was expected to make landfall on China’s south-east coast in the early hours of Friday, state radio reported, citing the Fujian provincial weather authorities. 

The ferry sank after passengers alarmed by strong winds rushed to one side of the boat, overturning it. As many as 36 people had been killed this week during Doksuri’s transit off the northern Philippines.

China’s national observatory has classified Doksuri as a “strong” typhoon, with maximum winds of 180 kmh, as it hurtled north-west through the Taiwan Strait towards Fujian province as of noon on Thursday. 

At one point Doksuri was a super typhoon, but lost some of its strength after it

lashed the coastline of the northern Philippines on Wednesday,

bursting banks of rivers and leaving thousands without electricity.

Three coastal cities in Fujian province shut schools, businesses and factories on Thursday, state media reported, while the flood control authorities in one of them, Xiamen, warned of a “serious impact”.

However, the China Meterological Administration forecast that it would be weaker than 2016’s Typhoon Meranti, the strongest to hit China’s eastern coast since 1949 and which killed at least 11 people.

Fifteen provinces and city-level administrative units across China have been affected by “severe” weather, including thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, gales and hail ahead of Doksuri’s landfall, state media Xinhua reported.

Beijing launched emergency flood control operations in the country’s south-west on Wednesday night after torrential rains in the provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, as well as the nearby metropolis of Chongqing.

Heavy flooding in the city of Luzhou, Sichuan province, swept cars onto tree trunks, according to videos circulating on Chinese social media. 

Passenger ships and fishing boats have also been grounded in parts of coastal Zhejiang province immediately north of Fujian.

Southern Taiwan, meanwhile, shut businesses and schools, while airlines cancelled hundreds of domestic flights.

This came amid warnings of landslides and floods as Doksuri churned past the island en route to China.

Doksuri was categorised as the second-strongest typhoon by Taiwan’s weather bureau.

Taiwan’s weather bureau issued wind and rain warnings on Thursday for the southern part of the island, including the major port city of Kaohsiung where businesses and schools were closed and landslide warnings issued.

All domestic flights were suspended in Taiwan, while a handful of international flights were cancelled.

Railway services between southern and eastern Taiwan were shut.

More than 4,000 people were evacuated as a precaution, mostly in the mountainous southern and eastern Taiwan, where nearly 0.7m of rainfall was recorded in some areas and up to 1m of rain was forecast.

The storm had cut power from more than 15,700 households across Taiwan but the majority of them had since been restored. REUTERS