Al Jazeera :
Super Typhoon Yagi has made landfall on the Chinese island province of Hainan, state media reported, after more than 400,000 people were forced to evacuate.
The meteorological service in heavily populated Hainan said on Friday that Yagi, which was earlier packing maximum sustained winds of 245km/h (152mph) near its centre, hit the province’s Wenchang city at about 4:20pm (08:20 GMT).
Yagi registers as the world’s second-most powerful tropical cyclone in 2024, after Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane Beryl, and the most severe in the Pacific basin.
On Friday, at least 419,367 residents in Hainan, a popular holiday destination, were relocated before Yagi’s landfall, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The storm had more than doubled in strength since killing 16 people in the northern Philippines earlier this week.
It is expected to sweep towards other parts of Hainan and Guangdong province before moving to the Beibu Gulf.