Super Typhoon Yagi is scary but residents say they are better prepared

"I couldn't sleep at all last night. The wind was so strong. Wild shrieks and howling were all over the place. When I looked out, all kinds of items were flying in the air – bricks, woods… It was very scary," Huang Yiming, a photographer based in Haikou, capital city of south China's Hainan Province said of the night when Super Typhoon Yagi landed.

The deadly storm made landfall in Wenchang City near Haikou on Friday night and by Saturday afternoon, it had killed four people and injured 95 others in southern China.

CGTN contacted residents in Haikou and Wenchang. Communication networks have been disrupted in many areas but interviewees shared their experience and photos showing how destructive Yagi was.

"Super, super, super powerful. All buildings with more than 15 floors were shaking. Windows were blown away, even refrigerators," 39-year-old Xiaopeng in Haikou told CGTN on Saturday.

"As a native (to Haikou), it's my first time seeing such a big typhoon," he added.

"My family moved to a hotel that provided electricity, water, internet and parking space before Yagi arrived. Our house is currently without water, electricity and internet," a Haikou resident surnamed Xie told CGTN, adding that his apartment is on the 17th floor – a dangerous level during a strong storm.

"Our village is still closed off. Communication has been restored but the internet signal is not very stable. Yesterday was horrifying. Toppled trees were everywhere. We were so scared," a Wenchang resident surnamed Feng told CGTN.

Residents have been comparing Yagi with Rammasun, another super typhoon that hit Hainan in 2014 and killed 46 people according to reports.

"For a typhoon, Rammasun is like an 18-year-old boy, but Yagi is a 30-year-old man at his prime," Xiaopeng said.

In spite of the "horror" they went through, many residents say that they are better prepared this time.

"In Wenchang, people used to build tiled houses so when Rammasun came, all houses collapsed. My village, Taoli Village, for example, was nearly flattened, including our house. After Rammasun, people started to shift to apartments or other buildings. Rammasun also taught us to be more vigilant like trimming trees and reinforcing buildings in advance, so this time the damage was significantly reduced," Feng told CGTN.

Xie in Haikou agreed.

"Tiled houses cannot resist strong winds so a lot of the roofs were blown off the last time. This time, we had plans. A few months ago, the city started to trim trees. People were also sent to reinforce the sewage system to avoid waterlogging," he said.

According to reports, local authorities in southern China's Guangdong and Hainan dispatched personnel to install iron doors and place sandbags before Yagi landed.

Guangdong's local government sent 8,700 staff members to check the reservoirs beforehand.

Hainan also relocated 35,000 fishing boats to safety prior to the storm.

Yagi, the 11th typhoon of 2024, made landfall twice on Friday, first striking Hainan and later Guangdong.

As of 5 p.m. on Saturday, Haikou had evacuated some 105,500 residents. Over 167,800 trees in the city had been uprooted and 56,742 hectares of crops affected.

More than 25,000 houses in Wenchang were damaged and 792 communication base stations were damaged with a power outage rate of 82.3 percent.

Many areas in Haikou and Wenchang remain without water and communication and resident are still reeling from Yagi's impact.

"The most urgent thing is for water, electricity and transportation to be restored as soon as possible. Life supplies are not a big problem in the short term. I think preventing high temperature and contagious diseases are more important than supplies this time," Feng told CGTN.

In Vietnam, Yagi left 9 dead and 186 injured, according to the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Sunday morning.

(Cover: A construction site damaged by Super Typhoon Yagi, Haikou City, Hainan Province, southern China, September 7, 2024. /CFP)