Typhoon Mangkhut Slams Hong Kong and Southern China

HONG KONG — Typhoon Mangkhut battered Hong Kong and Macau on Sunday with 100 miles-per-hour wind gusts, drenching rains and 11-foot surges of seawater that inundated the first urban area of Asia to face the wrath of the year’s mightiest storm.

Mangkhut left a swath of damaged buildings and scores of injuries in Hong Kong and Macau before churning across the southern coast of China. Barely a day earlier, it ravaged the northern Philippines and left dozens buried in landslides, including people sheltering in a church and a dormitory for miners.

The unofficial count from the Philippine police put the number of dead as at least 59. The death toll was expected to rise as rescue workers continued digging into areas buried by mud, especially in mountainous parts of Benguet Province in the northern island of Luzon. The president’s office said 43 bodies had been recovered from the mine landslide and the search was continuing.

Francis Tolentino, a senior adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, estimated that 5.7 million people had been affected by the storm and raised concerns about how aid could be sent to the hardest-hit areas.

While the other side of the world was preoccupied with the destructive power of Hurricane Florence as it drenched the Carolinas, Mangkhut hurtled into southern China’s city of Taishan, in the sprawling, densely populated province of Guangdong, making landfall around 5 p.m.