Officials on a popular resort island off China’s southern coast have evacuated more than 20,000 people, closed businesses and halted public transportation as Typhoon Kajiki bears down, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday.
Hainan, China’s only tropical beach destination, received over 97 million visitors in 2024, according to the news agency. The closures affected Sanya, a city that has a population of over one million and is known for its beachfront resorts.
The typhoon had maximum sustained winds of about 104 miles per hour on Sunday afternoon, equivalent to those of a Category 2 Atlantic hurricane, according to the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It was expected to either make landfall on Hainan or pass nearby on Sunday afternoon or evening, according to Xinhua.
Kajiki was forecast to make landfall in central or northern Vietnam on Monday, the Vietnamese state-run news media reported.
On Hainan Island, the Sanya Meteorological Observatory issued a red typhoon warning on Sunday, the most severe of China’s four-tier warning system, the Global Times, a Communist Party-run newspaper, reported. The storm was forecast to bring lightning, torrential rain and gusts of up to 113 miles per hour, it said.
The authorities have evacuated over 20,000 people in Hainan and returned over 30,000 fishing boats to ports, the People’s Daily newspaper reported.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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