South Korea steels itself for ‘massive’ Super Typhoon Hinnamnor: ‘we have to minimise casualties’
- South Korea’s chief forecaster said the typhoon’s 400km radius was ‘big enough to cover Seoul to Busan’, as he urged residents to remain indoors
- The typhoon, which is forecast to be even more destructive than 1959’s Typhoon Sarah, is expected to make landfall early on Tuesday morning
“We’re now entering a phase where we have to minimise casualties,” Han Sang-un, the chief forecaster at Korea Meteorological Administration, said during a briefing Monday, urging residents of southern coastal areas to remain indoors, rather than carry out maintenance to prepare for the storm’s arrival.
“It’s a massive typhoon with a 400km (248.5 miles) radius, which is big enough to cover Seoul to Busan. Most regions in Korea will experience intense rain and wind,” he said. The typhoon is likely to hit Jeju at about 1am local time on Tuesday, and southern coastal cities at about 7am, according to the administration.
Run rates of three reactors at the Kori Nuclear Power Plant were lowered to less than 30 per cent to prepare for the storm, while liquefied natural gas traders said they expected delays to some shipments to avoid the impact of the storm.
South Korea’s biggest oil refiner SK Innovation Co. suspended crude vessels from entering its Ulsan port and is working on securing backup power supply at the plant, a company spokesman said. GS Caltex Corp. evacuated ships to a safety zone, and LG Chem Ltd. is operating under an emergency response plan with strengthened safety monitoring of its plants in Yeosu and Ulsan.
South Korea’s ‘worst ever typhoon’ threatens catastrophic damage
State-owned Korea Electric Power Corp. was taking measures to ensure a stable supply of electricity. Subsidiary Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. lowered output at the Kori nuclear plant preemptively to guard against any abrupt disruptions if reactors are directly affected by Hinnamnor.
The storm, which is forecast to be even more destructive in South Korea than Typhoon Sarah in 1959, was heading north-northeast at about 17 kilometres per hour, some 300 kilometres south-southwest off the coast of Jeju as of noon Seoul time, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration. Hinnamnor is currently packing sustained winds of about 127 miles per hour with gusts as much as 155 miles an hour, according to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.
Hinnamnor has already disrupted port operations, airline services and schools across Asia since developing last month. Shanghai’s major container port of Yangshan was preparing to resume terminal operations after an earlier halt, while South Korea’s Busan and Ulsan ports have closed. Korean Air Lines Co. and Asiana Airlines Inc. cancelled more than 170 domestic flights for Monday and Tuesday, and some airline arrivals and departures in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa were also scrapped. Some schools in both South Korea and China will be closed for safety reasons.
China, Japan ground ferries, flights as Super Typhoon Hinnamnor approaches
South Korea’s top steelmaker Posco Holdings Inc. is considering a partial closure of its plant in Pohang and shipbuilders, including Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., were debating whether to halt production, the companies said Monday.
Almost 200 residents in coastal areas of Busan, the nation’s second most populous city, were asked Monday to evacuate to shelters, while stores at Marine City in the Haeundae beach district were told to temporarily close.
