Two days ago, Typhoon Saola had generated enough hype to cause everyone to think the worst. It threatened to cause damaging impacts on the city of Hong Kong and southern China and kicked up storm warnings and alerts to its highest degrees, but in the end, it moved past Taiwan but never reached the two countries. Thankfully, it bypassed them.
Saturday morning, a new storm finally hit the region. To everyone’s relief, the damage generated by the storm, which was already named Typhoon Haikui, was surprisingly much less than anticipated.
Many parts of Hong Kong were lashed by strong winds and downpours, but they were at levels that were manageable. Some of the more affected coastal areas saw rough seas, and the region was hit with recorded wind speeds of up to seventy-eight kilometers per hour.
Fortunately, even as the waves battered the coast, officials stated that the storm was not incredibly damaging to the city, and therefore, an official warning or signal was not necessary.
Roofs of some buildings were shattered, trees were uprooted, and boats were overturned by waves, but in general, the effects of the storm were minimized. By the afternoon, it had already moved to the western edge of South China Sea, where it continues to move off to the West and away from the mainland.
Officials and citizens are sighing in relief at the fact that it is now away from the area, and that the damage done was a lot less than the havoc that would have been caused had Typhoon Saola landed on the region.
Despite the fact that the damages were minimized, some families were still affected. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, farms were inundated, and crops and livestock were lost.
Stocks for markets, which in the past were hit by similar storms, saw a slight decrease but are expected to recover soon. Meanwhile, humanitarian groups are providing aid for those who have been affected by the storm and the government has mobilized disaster-response teams to assess the damage.
Overall, despite the damage done, everyone in the region is grateful that the storm that hit the residents of Hong Kong and southern China was much less damaging that the one previously predicted.