By Min Lee, HONG KONG, AP
Residents scrambled to stockpile food and authorities ordered ships to remain docked as southern China geared up Wednesday for a "super typhoon" that killed 20 people and left over 200,000 people homeless in the northern Philippines.
Typhoon Megi packed winds of 140 miles per hour (225 kilometers per hour) when it struck the Philippines on Monday. Philippine officials reported 20 deaths, including several people who drowned after being pinned by fallen trees. The storm damaged thousands of homes and flooded vast areas of rice and corn fields.
Late Wednesday, Megi was about 350 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of the southern financial hub of Hong Kong and expected to eventually hit the southern Chinese coast, the Hong Kong Observatory said on its website.
The storm's winds have weakened to 110 mph (175 kph), but are expected to build strength over the next two days before losing steam again Saturday, when the typhoon is projected to make landfall in China's Guangdong province, the observatory said.
In Guangdong, officials have ordered all fishing boats back to shore, put the provincial flood control headquarters on alert and warned that reservoirs should be watched, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. In the southern island province of Hainan, residents rushed to supermarkets to stock up on food, vegetables and bottled water, Xinhua said.
In Hong Kong, the mood was calmer in the densely populated city of 7 million whose infrastructure has traditionally held up well against the annual summer barrage of typhoons. Still, the Hong Kong Observatory urged residents to make sure their windows could be properly bolted, avoid the coastline and refrain from water sports. It also ordered small vessels to return to shore.
In the Philippines, more than 215,000 people were forced out of their homes by the typhoon, including 10,300 people who fled to evacuation centers, officials said. About US$30 million (1.3 billion pesos) worth of infrastructure and crops were damaged and nearly 5,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by Megi's ferocious wind, according to the government's main disaster-response agency.
Oil platforms in the eastern part of the South China Sea were evacuated on Wednesday, a source said. Asia's top oil refiner, China's Sinopec Corp, suspended some small volumes of fuel loading destined for Hong Kong, another source said.
"It's one of the biggest (typhoons) in recent years," said Kong Wai, a scientific officer with the Hong Kong Observatory, adding that it was expected to make landfall on Saturday and pick up strength in the warm waters of the South China sea.
Hong Kong's Cable Television said a Taiwan vessel had sunk in the storm and at least one sailor died.
About 2,500 fishing boasts in Haikou, the capital of the Chinese resort island province of Hainan, had returned to harbor on Tuesday and the city of Sanya was taking down billboards, the China Daily said, to prevent injuries. Trains from the island had been halted.
Megi had winds in excess of 250 kph (155 mph) when it hit Isabela province on Monday. It lost strength overland, only to pick up energy again from the warm sea waters west of the Philippines.
Tropical Storm Risk's (http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com) projections show the storm hitting the Chinese coast between Hong Kong and Zhangzhou later in the week.
Flooding in Cambodia, meanwhile, claimed at least 8 lives and wrought an estimated US$70 million in damage to roads, irrigation systems, bridges and homes, officials said.
"We hope for assistance from development partners, local and international charities," Nhim Vanda, vice chairman of the National Committee for Disaster Management told Reuters.
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