SÁB 4 DE MAYO DE 2024 - 13:41hs.
It also hit Hong Kong

Three dead in Macau as typhoon smashes casino enclave

Typhoon Hato left three dead in Macau today (Wednesday) as it brought chaos and destruction to the enclave after sweeping through neighboring Hong Kong. Power had been out in many traditional casinos, while severe flooding had left cars underwater and people swimming in Macau's city streets.

Three men aged 30 to 65 died, the Macau government said, while two people were missing. Apple Daily showed footage of people swimming through muddy water in what are usually roads, and being swept off their feet by winds.

The Venetian casino resort was on back-up power and without air conditioning or proper lighting, said one person.

One employee of Sands, which owns the Venetian and the Parisian, said power had been out across the whole of Macau but was beginning to return. "Because many guests come in the summer, a lot of them have been stuck in the major resorts and casinos," the employee said. "All transportations - air, ground, sea - have halted, so customers who have checked out cannot leave yet."

Other casinos affected by the typhoon were the Studio City casino resort -operated by Melco Resorts on Cotai-, City of Dreams, Galaxy Macau, and Ponte 16 resort, among others, with different consecuences.

"Some have no tap water supply. The city looks like after an attack," Harald Bruning, editor of the Macau Post Daily, told AFP, describing it as the worst typhoon he had experienced in 30 years.

Electricity was still down at the Grand Lisboa Wednesday afternoon, with the casino and restaurants there out of action, a staff member told AFP.

The water supply was also limited, authorities said, and 50 flights cancelled from its international airport.

Meteorologists raised the city's most severe Typhoon 10 warning as the storm hit, only the third time they have done so since 1997, when the former British colony was handed over to China.

Source: GMB / ABS-CBN News