Trading in Hong Kong was suspended Wednesday, along with flights and school, as the island was lashed by tropical cyclone Hato, the first category 10 storm to hit the Asian financial hub since 2012.
Streets near the island nation's Victoria Harbour were flooded by waves and a storm swell that lifted sea levels as much as five meters, while trees across the island were uprooted by winds that gusted as strong as 64 miles per hour during the early part of the day.
Hong Kong's financial center was largely abandoned as workers stayed home to avoid the worst of the storm and after the Hong Kong Exchange closed markets for stocks and derivatives.
Hong Kong suffers regular tropical storms from July to October, though storms that make landfall are rare. The stock market closure is the first due to a storm since August last year.
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Hong Kong Observatory, which is responsible for tracking the storm, said that the worst of had passed by early-afternoon and downgraded the cyclone to a level 8 storm, noting that winds were still at about 40 miles per hour with stronger gusts.
"At 3:00 p.m, severe typhoon Hato was centered about 140 kilometers (87 miles) west of Hong Kong ... and is forecast to move west-northwest at about 25 kilometers per hour into inland Guangdong, and weaken gradually," Hong Kong Observatory noted. "In the past hour, the maximum sustained winds recorded ... were 86 kilometers per hour with maximum gusts (of) 103 kilometers per hour."
Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's largest airline, said that the majority of its flights into and out of Hong Kong's airport would be suspended between 6:00 am and 5:00 pm. The airline asked passengers to postpone or cancel non-essential flights and said it would waive fees on rebooking or refunding tickets for affected passengers.
A KLM flight from Amsterdam was the only flight to land during the Wednesday morning, while an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa attempted a landing before aborting and redirecting to mainland China.
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