Typhoon Megi kills 10 in Philippines, heads for China

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Typhoon Megi, which left at least 10 people dead as it crossed the Philippines yesterday, strengthened as it churned over the South China Sea on a path to Hong Kong, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said, reports Bloomberg.
The storm, which made landfall as a supertyphoon on Luzon's northeast coast yesterday before weakening over land, was about 350 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Manila and 780 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong at 2 p.m. local time, the U.S. Navy said. Megi's winds increased to 185 kilometers per hour and the storm was moving west-northwest at 11 kph.
Megi's winds are forecast to strengthen to 213 kph as it crosses the South China Sea. That would make it a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, capable of "catastrophic damage," according to the US National Hurricane Center. Megi may hit Hong Kong within three days, the US Navy tracking map shows.
Megi will "severely" affect China's coast, the nation's National Meteorological Center said in a statement yesterday.
China's State Disaster Relief Commission issued warnings for the southern regions of Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian to prepare for relief operations yesterday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. On the island of Hainan, work began to shore up reservoirs, Xinhua said in a separate report.