Salute: Heroes brave the wind as Super Typhoon Mangkhut slams southern China

Super Typhoon Mangkhut made a landfall in southern China’s Guangdong province at 5 p.m. Sunday, September 16, with unprecedented scale and power. Trees blown down, windows smashed and broken, pedestrians struggling to walk…

At a time when most people were seeking shelter from the storm, some brave souls braved the wind and rain for the good of many, be it police officers patrolling the streets and issuing safety alerts, traffic police remaining at their posts to prevent disasters, reporters providing timely first-hand information on the storm, firefighters evacuating people to safer places, or armed police forces standing ready for any kind of emergency…

Amid the fierce storm on the afternoon of the 16th, a 15-year-old boy was trapped under a tree that succumbed to the wind when walking down Huanggang Road in Shenzhen. After police in Futian received the report, two police officers, Zhang Baojun and Chen Dadian, reached the site on foot, as the roads were blocked by falling trees, and coordinated their rescue with fire and traffic police departments in a timely manner.

A 40,000-tonne engineering ship, at noon on the 16th, drifted away from the anchorage ground in Huizhou, with 73 people still on board. After receiving the report, Guangdong’s Maritime Search and Rescue Center immediately coordinated with other maritime authorities to send rescue vessels to the ship. Three high-powered tugboats arrived at the scene to provide emergency response functions and monitor the situation. The ship is currently in stable condition and the 73 crew members are safe and sound.

According to provincial authorities in Guangdong, 2.52 million people had been relocated across the province as of 6:00 pm on Sunday and nearly 19,000 temporary shelters were opened for people in need, about 30,000 construction sites and 640 scenic areas were closed, and more than 48,000 fishing boats returned to ports in the province.

Local authorities also raced against time to battle power outages due to the storm, which affected more than 1.57 million households in the region.

Before Typhoon Mangkhut made a landfall in Guangdong, more than 71 million mobile phone messages were sent by authorities to alert residents of the upcoming storm, while typhoon warnings and guidelines for disaster prevention were also provided on TV and social media networks.