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Hong Kong will delay morning trading sessions after the city issued its third-highest storm signal for the first time this year as Typhoon Kalmaegi sweeps by the financial center.
At 7 a.m., Kalmaegi was centered about 390 kilometers (242 miles) southwest of Hong Kong and is moving west-northwest at about 30 kilometers an hour toward the Leizhou peninsula and Hainan island in China, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.
“Although Kalmaegi is moving gradually away from Hong Kong, its associated rainbands will affect Hong Kong intermittently, and local gale force winds will persist for a period of time,” the Observatory said. “It is expected that the No. 8 Gale or Storm Signal will remain in force for some time in the morning.”
If signal 8 is still in place at 9 a.m., then morning trading sessions for all markets will be canceled, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. said in a statement today. If the signal is canceled at or before noon, then securities trading will resume in the afternoon, it said.
Banks will be closed to the public because of the typhoon.
The Observatory raised the No. 8 Storm Signal at 10:30 p.m. local time yesterday, according to its website. Winds with sustained speeds as high as 130 kilometers per hour were measured at the storm’s center, the observatory said.
Flight Disruption
As of 3 a.m., 244 arriving flights and 275 departing flights had been delayed in Hong Kong, with 19 arrivals and 19 departures canceled, the Hong Kong government said in a press release. Six people have sought medical treatment and there had been two reports of flooding, it said.
China Southern Airlines Co., the country’s largest airline by passengers carried, canceled more than 50 flights scheduled for yesterday and today because of the approach of the typhoon, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
China recalled about 30,000 vessels to harbor and evacuated about 6,000 oil rig workers by helicopter as Kalmaegi approached, Xinhua said.
The Hong Kong observatory raised the Signal 8 warning three times last year. The city, located on China’s southern coast, gets on average about six tropical cyclones annually, according to the weather bureau.
The Hong Kong weather bureau raised Signal 3 once previously this year, for Super Typhoon Rammasun in July.
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