Typhoon Noul, weakened after making landfall on Sunday in China’s Guangdong province, continued today to pose a risk of heavy rains and flooding in the south and center of the country.
Typhoon Noul, the twelfth typhoon of the year according to Chinese nomenclature, made landfall at around 3:50 am local time on Sunday (8:50 pm GMT Saturday) in the locality of Pinghai, with maximum winds of 45 meters per second.
The National Meteorological Center indicated on Sunday that the system weakened after making landfall and was moving north-northwest through inland Guangdong, in southern China, with forecasts of it entering southern Hunan during the early hours of today.
Authorities maintained warnings for torrential rains and severe convective weather conditions, with extreme accumulations forecast in parts of the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi (center) and Hunan (center), in addition to strong winds in the coastal areas of southern China.
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In Guangdong, the provincial hydrological service reported that, by the end of Sunday afternoon local time, eleven rivers and thirteen hydrological stations had exceeded warning levels.
Hunan activated a third-level emergency response on Sunday in its fourteen cities and prefectures, given the arrival of the rains associated with the typhoon, with forecasts of between 80 and 200 millimeters in the east and north of the province, and local maximums exceeding 300 millimeters.
In the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong, where the observatory lowered the tropical cyclone signals on Sunday as Noul moved away toward inland Guangdong, authorities recorded 21 injured, 29 temporary shelters opened and more than 300 reports of fallen trees.
Air traffic continues to be affected, though without large-scale cancellations today: according to Feichangzhun data consulted this morning local time, the airports of Guangzhou, Macau and Shenzhen were operating normally, while Hong Kong’s was registering small-scale delays.
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Noul prompted the relocation of more than 750,000 people in southeastern China and the allocation of 100 million yuan (12.95 million euros) for recovery work.
The month of July was marked in China by a succession of natural disasters, with at least 39 dead due to rains associated with Typhoon Maysak in Guangxi (south), 21 dead in a landslide in Gansu (northwest), 11 dead due to storms and tornadoes in Hubei (center), and new victims this weekend due to floods and landslides in the north and northwest of the country.
