Macau casinos, which closed Tuesday in advance of Typhoon Ragasa, have been cleared to reopen at 2am on Thursday.
For 30 hours starting at 5pm Tuesday, the “super-typhoon” battered the Philippines, Taiwan and parts of Southern China. At the height of the storm, Macau raised a Typhoon Signal No 8. By 11pm Wednesday, the alert had been lowered to a Signal No 3.
According to the Macau Daily Times, Ragasa caused “more disruption than damage”. Even so, it caused an almost total shutdown of the special administrative region. Residents fled their homes for emergency shelter and schools, bridges and other businesses closed, as did Macau International Airport.
During the worst of the storm, wind speeds climbed to almost 200 km per hour. But flooding was not as grave as officials predicted, topping out at 1.5 metres above street level in some sections. The storm caused no fatalities or serious injuries in the Chinese SAR, but it killed at least 17 people in Taiwan, reported CNN.
Emergency operations praised
The Macau Civil Protection Operation Centre won high marks for its performance during the crisis, the Times reported. It was the first major test of the CPOC, established in 2024 to enhance civil protections in the event of emergency.
Initial reports warned that Ragasa could equal typhoons Hato and Mangkhut for intensity and destruction. Hato, which made landfall in August 2017, took 10 lives and left more than 240 people injured. Mangkhut hit in September 2018 at a speed of 185 kilometres per hour, causing widespread flooding and property damage.
As life gets back to normal, the Macau government advised residents and visitors to be alert for unstable weather through Thursday. Frequent heavy showers and thunderstorms could be accompanied by winds “intermittently reaching Force 7 to 8” with gusts of up to 110 kph.
Macau casinos closed on Tuesday afternoon as Typhoon Ragasa made landfall with hurricane-force winds approaching 200kph.