Tropical Cyclone Sinlaku causes widespread damage in Pacific

A category five storm has hit the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), the tiny US territory in the north-western Pacific Ocean. Winds of more than 250 km/h have been recorded.

A super typhoon with ferocious winds and heavy rains made landfall in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) overnight, destroying homes and infrastructure, News.Az reports, citing ABC.

The category five storm has brought destructive winds of more than 250 kilometres an hour to the tiny US territory in the north-western Pacific Ocean, home to nearly 50,000 people.

Locals have been advised by the National Weather Service to remain in designated shelters, as the system stalls over the islands of Tinian and Saipan, with winds up to 200km/h reported this morning.

"We're dealing with an especially grim situation," said Landon Aydlett from the National Weather Service in Guam. 

"Our message to brace for impact yesterday evening still stands."

On Tinian, one of the three main islands of the CNMI, locals have woken up to devastation.

"It is absolutely scary — you can't see outside, it's still blowing really hard. We're taking in water, a lot of trees are down, people's homes are ripped," Deborah Fleming from the Tinian Women's Association said. 

Mr Aydlett, a warning coordination meteorologist, said the slow-moving nature of the storm was unusual.

"They go into a slow crawl, sometimes [there is] a lack of steering, and so that's what we're seeing with this one," he said.

"This is especially diabolical as far as impacts are concerned.

"It's going to be very revealing once we get more daylight over the islands."

Mr Aydlett, who lives in Guam, said the neighbouring territory had fared better than CNMI but was still dealing with tropical storm-force conditions.

"A lot of flooding, a lot of trees down, probably some small substandard housing units, wood and tin structures, they've probably taken some significant damage, but the full scope of that's going to be realised as we get into the daytime hours," he said.

Extent of damage unknown

The super typhoon comes just three years after Typhoon Mawar brought 225km/h winds to CNMI and eight years after Super Typhoon Yutu — the strongest typhoon ever recorded to impact the Mariana Islands.

Mr Aydlett said he was receiving reports that the current event was worse than Yutu.

"While the winds are weaker [than Yutu], this is a much longer duration event, it's much slower, and it's going to prolong the damage, the impacts," he said.

"People are getting battle-weary up there."

Deborah Fleming said the recovery after Typhoon Sinlaku passed would be on top of the ongoing recovery efforts from Typhoon Yutu in 2018.

"This is my third super typhoon … it is far greater than Yutu, stronger," she said.

"We're islands and storms are part of our life and we are resilient, we all work together, we help each other and rebuild as we can one day at a time."

Tinian local Jhon Aaron Borinaga, said the arrival of the super typhoon was unexpected.

"It was very scary because I knew that it would break a lot of houses, and cars.

"Most of the people were in a panic.. and they started buying gas, food and securing their houses."

US Congresswoman Kim King-Hinds, who represents Northern Mariana Islands, said conditions remained dangerous despite the eye of the storm slowly moving away from the area.

"Please don't go outside yet … the storm is not done with us."

She said tropical storm-force winds were forecast to last until tomorrow morning and people needed to be patient before venturing out from their places of shelter.

She said she had already raised the need for federal US government help.

"Help is on the way as soon as airplanes are able to land at Saipan International Airport," she said.

News.Az 

By Leyla Şirinova