Hong Kong escapes worst of Typhoon Usagi

A clean-up operation was under way in southern China on Monday after Typhoon Usagi made landfall in Guangdong, the southeastern province that borders Hong Kong, on Sunday evening as a "severe typhoon".

Hong Kong missed the worst of the storm which skirted 100km north of the Chinese territory.

Xinhua, the Chinese state media agency, said the typhoon claimed 25 lives on the mainland. Late on Monday morning, Usagi, which has been downgraded to a tropical depression - a storm with winds less than 63km an hour - was moving west towards Guangxi province.

Usagi, which means "rabbit" in Japanese, was the strongest storm to emerge in the world this year. Previously classified as a more powerful "super typhoon" - a storm with winds over 185km an hour - it battered Taiwan and the Philippines over the weekend as it approached China.

Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, a crucial manufacturing region for the global economy situated in Guangdong, had been preparing for the possibility that Usagi would be the worst storm to hit the region in more than three decades. While it did not live up to those fears, it still pummelled the region with torrential rain and ferocious winds.

Usagi caused minimal damage in Hong Kong, but the storm wreaked havoc on transportation. The Hong Kong government said it forced the cancellation of 370 passenger flights and dozens of delayed flights.

Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's flag carrier, halted local operations at 6pm Sunday as Usagi approached the former British colony. On Monday, it said it would resume flights at noon, but warned that there would "continue to be flight delays and cancellations as the operations gradually returns to normal". The airline said it would also consider adding flights on Tuesday.

With Usagi weakening on Monday morning, Hong Kong Observatory removed its Signal No 8 alert - a level that requires public transport to stop operations. The Hong Kong stock exchange cancelled the Monday morning trading session, but said operations would resume at 1pm.

On Sunday evening, Xinhua said tens of thousands of residents had been evacuated from coastal areas of Fujian province. It said Guangdong had also ordered four of the six units at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant east of Hong Kong to operate at a reduced load. High-speed trains from Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, to Beijing were also cancelled.

Over the weekend, Hong Kong residents stocked up on supplies in preparation for Usagi, which came 14 months after the territory was lashed by Typhoon Vicente, the most powerful storm to hit southeast China in years.

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