Typhoon Noul Slams Southern China as 700,000 Evacuate Guangdong
- Jul 26
- 3 min read
WHAT HAPPENED: Typhoon Noul, the strongest storm to strike China so far this year, roared ashore in southern Guangdong province early Sunday, lashing one of the world’s most densely populated coastlines with destructive winds and torrential rain. China’s national weather center said Noul made landfall on the coast of Huidong county in Huizhou at approximately 3:50 a.m. local time, packing maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometers per hour — about 101 mph — near the eye of the storm.
Authorities evacuated more than 700,000 people across Guangdong ahead of landfall, one of the largest storm evacuations in the province in recent years. Airports canceled flights across the region, ferry services were suspended, and schools and businesses in the storm’s path were shuttered as officials raised emergency response levels.
WHAT WE KNOW: State broadcaster CCTV aired footage on Sunday showing roads strewn with debris, toppled structures, and sheets of rain driving through emptied streets. Scaffolding collapses were reported as gusts tore through coastal districts, and hundreds of thousands of households experienced power outages as crews scrambled to restore lines. Hong Kong, which sits just southwest of the landfall zone, hoisted high storm warning signals, grounding flights and bringing much of the territory to a standstill through the weekend.
The storm weakened as it pushed inland, but forecasters warned that the danger is far from over. Noul is expected to dump extreme rainfall across Guangdong, Guangxi, and neighboring provinces over the coming days, raising the risk of flash flooding, urban inundation, and landslides in mountainous areas — historically the deadliest phase of China’s typhoon season.
BACKGROUND: Noul is the second major typhoon to batter China this month. Typhoon Bavi slammed into eastern China in mid-July after forcing nearly two million people to evacuate, having first raked northern Taiwan and Japan’s southwestern islands with damaging winds that left tens of thousands without power. The back-to-back strikes have stretched emergency resources and disrupted shipping across some of the busiest ports on Earth.
Guangdong is China’s most populous province and its economic powerhouse, home to manufacturing hubs like Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Guangzhou. A direct typhoon strike on the Pearl River Delta region carries outsized economic consequences, threatening factory output, port operations, and supply chains that feed global markets.
Scientists have long warned that a warming climate is intensifying tropical cyclones in the western Pacific, with storms strengthening faster and carrying more moisture. China’s southern coast has absorbed repeated hits in recent years, prompting massive investments in coastal defenses, early-warning systems, and the kind of mass pre-emptive evacuations seen this weekend.
REACTION: Provincial officials in Guangdong activated their highest levels of typhoon response, mobilizing rescue teams, pre-positioning supplies, and ordering fishing fleets back to port well before landfall. State media emphasized the scale of the evacuation effort as evidence of an improved disaster playbook, crediting early action with preventing casualties in the initial landfall phase.
Residents across the region documented the storm’s fury on social media, sharing videos of bending trees, rattling windows, and flooded intersections. In Hong Kong, shelves were stripped of essentials ahead of the storm as residents hunkered down for the weekend.
WHAT TO WATCH: The biggest threat now shifts from wind to water. Forecasters are tracking the storm’s rainfall footprint as it decays over southern China, with several days of downpours expected. River levels, reservoir releases, and landslide warnings across Guangdong and Guangxi will determine whether Noul is remembered as a well-managed near miss or a compounding disaster.
Attention will also turn to the economic toll — from canceled flights and idled ports to any damage in the manufacturing belt — and to how quickly power and transport links can be restored in affected counties. And with the peak of typhoon season still ahead, meteorologists are already watching the western Pacific for the next system.
BOTTOM LINE: China’s strongest typhoon of 2026 hit one of its most vital regions, and a massive evacuation effort appears to have blunted the initial blow. But with days of extreme rain still to come and two major typhoons in a single month, southern China’s long storm season is only getting started.
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