School and work are suspended in parts of southern China as Typhoon Yagi edges closer

HONG KONG (AP) — School and work were suspended Thursday in parts of southern China as Typhoon Yagi closed in on an island province with the potential to be the most powerful storm to hit the area in a decade.

The Hong Kong Observatory said the typhoon, with maximum sustained winds of 210 kilometers per hour (130 miles per hour), would skirt around 300 kilometers (190 miles) southwest of the financial hub on Friday morning.

Kindergartens, special schools and evening classes were canceled in the semi-autonomous city while the weather remained calm Thursday morning. The Education Bureau announced the city’s schools would be suspended on Friday to ensure students’ safety.

China’s official news agency, Xinhua, said tens of thousands of fishing boats returned to ports in Hainan and elsewhere to seek shelter, along with nearly 70,000 fishers. State broadcaster CCTV said some train services would be suspended, starting Thursday evening.

Hainan Meteorological Service forecast the typhoon would make landfall Friday along the region from Qionghai in Hainan to Dianbai in neighboring Guangdong province. Meteorological authorities said it could be the strongest typhoon to hit Hainan in the past 10 years, Xinhua reported. The tropical island is a popular tourist destination known for its holiday resorts and duty-free shopping allowance.

In Guangdong, all coastal tourist attractions and beaches were ordered to close from Wednesday evening, with dozens of flights canceled at the airport in Zhuhai city, state media China Daily reported.

Typhoon Yagi traveled north from the Philippines, where it set off landslides and unleashed pounding rains that caused flooding and left at least 14 people dead.