CHINA: Typhoon Nesat forces evacuation of hundreds of thousands

Sept. 29, 2011 12:17 PM PT

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A typhoon blew past Hong Kong and slammed into southern China on Thursday after battering the Philippines, where at least 35 people were killed by the storm earlier this week, according to news reports. (See more photographs).

About 300,000 people were evacuated before Typhoon Nesat made landfall on China’s Hainan Island at 2:30 p.m., the official New China News Agency said. Authorities in Hainan closed schools, suspended ferry and rail services, canceled airline flights and recalled fishing boats to harbor.

Photographs from the area showed knocked-down trees and people braving heavy wind and rain.

In Hong Kong, the stock market suspended trading, flights were disrupted and most businesses closed as the storm swept by earlier in the day, but there were no reports of serious damage.

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-- Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles

World Now

Alexandra Zavis

Alexandra Zavis is a former writer and editor on the Los Angeles Times’ Foreign Desk who has reported from more than 40 countries. She spent a decade with the Associated Press, covering Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, among other war-torn places. After joining The Times in 2006, she has served as a Baghdad correspondent and as a California reporter covering poverty and veterans issues. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award for distinguished reporting on foreign affairs and was part of teams of reporters awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for foreign correspondence and APME’s International Perspective Award. She is a graduate of Oxford University and City University in London.

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