2 days ago
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A super typhoon steadily battered a pair of remote U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean with ferocious winds and relentless rains, shredding tin roofs and forcing residents to take cover from flying tree limbs.
Super Typhoon Sinlaku pounded the Northern Mariana Islands for hours before daybreak Wednesday, slowing just to inflict more damage across the islands of Tinian and Saipan, home to nearly 50,000 people.
In the village Susupe on Saipan, the wind tore the roof off of a commercial building and broke tree branches. A blue sedan lay on its side.
Resident Dong Min Lee shot some video of a car sitting on top of two others in his apartment building’s parking lot below. The winds also tore off part of his balcony railing.
“I hope people will take an interest and help. The damage is really huge here,” Lee said in a Facebook message.
The typhoon — the strongest tropical cyclone on Earth this year — was packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph) when it made landfall on the islands, the National Weather Service said.
Tropical force winds and torrential rainfall also led to flash flooding on Guam, a U.S. territory to the south with several U.S. military installations and about 170,000 residents, the weather service said. Earlier, it hit the outer islands and atolls of Chuuk in the Federated States of Mic...
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