King of storms:An overturned tricycle in Alcala, Cagayan province, Philippines.AFPTED ALJIBE  

Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into mainland China late on Sunday after leaving a trail of destruction in Hong Kong and Macau and killing at least 59 people in the northern Philippines.

The world’s biggest storm this year felled trees and sent skyscrapers swaying in high-rise Hong Kong, injuring more than 200 people there before making landfall on the coast of Jiangmen city, in southern China’s Guangdong province.

Provincial authorities said they evacuated a total of 2.37 million people and ordered tens of thousands of fishing boats back to port before the arrival of what Chinese media has dubbed the “King of Storms”.

Dozens of landslips

Mangkhut left large expanses in the north of the main Philippine island of Luzon underwater as fierce winds tore trees from the ground and rain unleashed dozens of landslips. Hong Kong weather authorities issued their maximum alert for the storm, which hit the city with gusts of more than 230 km per hour and left 213 people injured, according to government figures.

The Philippines was just beginning to count the cost of the typhoon which hit northern Luzon on Saturday. The death toll jumped to 59 on Sunday evening, police said, as more landslip victims were discovered.

An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people.

The latest victims were mostly people who died in landslips, including a family of four. In addition to those killed in the Philippines, a woman was swept out to sea in Taiwan.

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