Typhoon “Chaba” spawns tornadoes, splits a ship in half, leaving 26 people missing, China
Image credit: SCMP (stillshot)
Typhoon “Chaba” made landfall in the coastal area of Maoming City, China’s Guangdong Province at around 15:00 LT on July 2, 2022, with maximum sustained winds around 95 km/h (60 mph). Chaba is the third named storm of the 2022 Pacific typhoon season and the first to make landfall in China.
The storm produced winds gusts up to 160 km/h (100 mph) off the coast of Guangdong, brought heavy rain the parts of southern China, especially the western part of the Pearl River Delta, and spawned at least 3 tornadoes – in Shantou, Chazhou and Foshan.
Fujing 001 – a 240 m (787 feet) long crane vessel tasked with assisting with the construction of an offshore wind farm, split in half and quickly sunk some 300 km (180 miles) SW of Hong Kong, leaving 26 crew members missing.
Only 4 of the ship’s 30 members were rescued, as of early Monday morning, July 4 (UTC). Search and rescue operations are still in progress.
Chaba lost its typhoon status shortly after making landfall and weakened into a tropical depression at 06:00 UTC on July 3.
On July 4, the eye of what was left of Chaba was located in the southern region of Guangxi, moving at a speed of 10 to 15 km/h (6 – 9 mph) into the provinces of Hunan and Hubei.
More heavy rain is expected in the central and eastern parts of the country in the days ahead, with parts of Guangxi forecast to receive up to 600 mm (23 inches) through Thursday, July 7.
Teo Blašković founded The Watchers in 2011 and edited it until 2026, covering seismic and volcanic activity, extreme weather, space weather and near-Earth objects. Articles on this page are his archive.
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