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Chinese Cities Suspend Schools, Cancel Flights ahead of Super Typhoon Yagi

A man looks up on a promenade at Victoria harbor in Hong Kong on September 5, 2024, as super typhoon Yagi tracked across the South China Sea towards the southern China coast. (Photo by Dale DE LA REY / AFP)
A man looks up on a promenade at Victoria harbor in Hong Kong on September 5, 2024, as super typhoon Yagi tracked across the South China Sea towards the southern China coast. (Photo by Dale DE LA REY / AFP)
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Chinese Cities Suspend Schools, Cancel Flights ahead of Super Typhoon Yagi

A man looks up on a promenade at Victoria harbor in Hong Kong on September 5, 2024, as super typhoon Yagi tracked across the South China Sea towards the southern China coast. (Photo by Dale DE LA REY / AFP)
A man looks up on a promenade at Victoria harbor in Hong Kong on September 5, 2024, as super typhoon Yagi tracked across the South China Sea towards the southern China coast. (Photo by Dale DE LA REY / AFP)

Cities in southern China suspended schools and canceled some flights on Thursday, as tropical storm Yagi strengthened into a super typhoon and barreled straight for the holiday island province of Hainan.
Yagi triggered floods and landslides on the main Philippine island of Luzon this week, leaving at least 13 dead, according to official figures.
The tropical storm intensified into a super typhoon as it tracked west across the South China Sea, China's Xinhua news agency said, packing winds of up to 209 kilometers (130 miles) per hour as it headed for Hainan.
"Hainan upgraded its emergency response to Yagi to the highest level at 11:30 am Thursday, according to the provincial disaster management authority," Xinhua said.
The typhoon is expected to make landfall on Friday afternoon in either Hainan or neighboring Guangdong, AFP said.
Work, school and local transport services were suspended from Thursday noon (0400 GMT) in Haikou, Hainan's capital.
In Hong Kong, which Yagi is expected to bypass, the weather observatory said it will issue the city's third-highest typhoon warning at 6:20 pm (1020 GMT), limiting public transport across the finance hub.
Classes at kindergarten and special schools in Hong Kong were suspended Thursday, while budget airline Hong Kong Express said six flights have been rescheduled.
Greater Bay Airlines said they would cancel four flights and reschedule two more due to the weather.
"Yagi will remain at super typhoon intensity and skirt around 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the southwest of Hong Kong tomorrow morning," the observatory said.
"Gale winds associated with Yagi are expected to affect the vicinity of the Pearl River Estuary tonight and tomorrow morning."
After southern China, Yagi will move towards Vietnam, on course to hit the northern and north-central regions around the famed UNESCO heritage site Halong Bay.
Vietnam's meteorological agency issued a storm warning on Thursday, and the government mobilized more than 2,700 military personnel for storm response.
Coastal provinces are planning a sailing ban on Friday, while Vietnam's mountainous provinces were ordered to prepare rescue vehicles.

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Varieties

Sunken Village Emerges in Greece as Drought Dries up Lake

The reappearing remains of buildings of the village of Kallio, which was intentionally flooded in 1980 to create a reservoir that would help meet the water needs of Greek capital Athens, are seen following receding water levels caused by drought, in Lake Mornos, Greece, September 3, 2024. (Reuters)
The reappearing remains of buildings of the village of Kallio, which was intentionally flooded in 1980 to create a reservoir that would help meet the water needs of Greek capital Athens, are seen following receding water levels caused by drought, in Lake Mornos, Greece, September 3, 2024. (Reuters)
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Sunken Village Emerges in Greece as Drought Dries up Lake

The reappearing remains of buildings of the village of Kallio, which was intentionally flooded in 1980 to create a reservoir that would help meet the water needs of Greek capital Athens, are seen following receding water levels caused by drought, in Lake Mornos, Greece, September 3, 2024. (Reuters)
The reappearing remains of buildings of the village of Kallio, which was intentionally flooded in 1980 to create a reservoir that would help meet the water needs of Greek capital Athens, are seen following receding water levels caused by drought, in Lake Mornos, Greece, September 3, 2024. (Reuters)

From beneath the shrinking Lake Mornos in central Greece, the muddied remains of homes are reemerging nearly 45 years since the village that once stood here disappeared underwater.

After a winter of hardly any snow, a summer of punishing heatwaves and months of little rain and drought across much of Greece, the huge man-made lake which supplies water for nearly half the Greek population has dwindled to its lowest level in decades.

"Day by day, the water goes down," said Dimitris Giannopoulos, mayor of the broader Dorida municipality, who said nothing similar had been seen for 33 years.

Long stretches of cracked soil surround the ruins of the lost village of Kallio, which was flooded in 1980 to create a lake to meet the ever-increasing water needs of the capital, some 200 km away. Bricks lie among mounds of seashells.

Greece's arid Mediterranean climate has made it particularly susceptible to the effects of global warming, which has worsened summer wildfires including blazes that reached the outskirts of Athens last month. Scientists say extreme weather linked to climate change is now driving the decline of the lake.

"It is an alarm bell," said Efthymis Lekkas, professor of disaster management at the University of Athens.

"We don't know what will happen in the coming period. If we have a rainless winter, things will get difficult."

Giannopoulos gestures towards Mount Giona towering over the lake, which used to be snow-capped but saw none last winter, Greece's warmest on record. On the lake's receding rim, trees have taken on a yellowish hue.

"They lack water. This has never happened before," he said.

Wells in the area are drying up and surrounding villages, which do not take water from the lake, suffered water cuts this summer, he said. A local firefighter chief said the risk of wildfires loomed as the forests became drier.

The lake's surface area has shrunk from around 16.8 square km in August 2022 to just 12.0 square km this year, according to satellite images released by Greece's National Observatory.

Water reserves there and at the three other reservoirs supplying Attica, a region of around 4 million people which includes Athens, had dropped to 700 million cubic meters in August down from 1.2 billion cubic meters in 2022, the environment ministry said.

The state-run Athens water company EYDAP had begun supplying the network with additional sources of water, it said.

Former residents of Kallio were surprised to see the village again, but saddened at its state.

"I used to see it full and say it was a beach. Now all you see is dryness," said 90-year-old Konstantinos Gerodimos.

His 77-year-old wife Maria chimes in: "If it continues like this, the entire village will appear, all the way to the bottom, where the church and our home was."