Evacuations ordered as remnants of Typhoon Koinu hit southern China

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — People have been moved to shelters and nearly 2,000 boats recalled to port as the remnants of Typhoon Koinu slammed into southern China on Monday after leaving one dead and over 300 injured in Taiwan.

The storm bore down on the southern Chinese island province of Hainan on Monday, just south of the financial center of Hong Kong and the key manufacturing regions in the surrounding area on mainland China.

The Hong Kong Observatory said on its website that Koinu was weakening from a typhoon into a tropical depression as it moved southwest along the coast of China’s Guangdong province.

Air and rail services have been suspended as Koinu, meaning puppy in Japanese, rolled into the region.

Koinu arrived a month after southern China and Hong Kong were lashed by Typhoon Saola, which triggered Hong Kong’s highest storm signal on a scale of 11. A week later, Guangdong province and Hong Kong were hit with the heaviest rains in almost 140 years. The storm also broke a windspeed record off Taiwan’s east coast, which faces the Pacific Ocean.

Ferry services connecting Hainan with mainland China were also suspended as Koinu moved across the island. The province is struggling to recover after its tourism industry was battered by China’s draconian travel restrictions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.