Recently, a couple from Nanjing traveled to Sanya, Hainan, but encountered Typhoon “Swordfish” on their way back, causing their flight to be canceled and forcing them to delay their return.
On August 24, a netizen who was traveling in Sanya, Hainan, posted a video saying, “The flight was suddenly canceled, leaving me trapped in Sanya. I encountered the strongest typhoon, with power outages in the room. Everything seems to be happening to me.”
The video showed strong winds outside the hotel, and in the evening, the hotel suddenly lost power, plunging the room into darkness, with only emergency lights on. The netizen also commented on the video area, saying, “The glass is about to shatter.”
According to the information released by Sanya, on August 24, Typhoon “Swordfish”, the 13th typhoon of the year, passed through Sanya, making it the strongest typhoon ever recorded in the history of Sanya’s meteorological data.
Due to the impact of “Swordfish”, Sanya Phoenix International Airport (hereinafter referred to as “Sanya Airport”) announced the suspension of flights taking off and landing from 10:00 on August 24, with subsequent flight cancellations.
On August 25, the video uploader, Ms. Li, told the “Xiaoxiang Morning News” that a few days ago, she and her husband went on vacation in Hainan. They had planned to fly back to Nanjing on the afternoon of August 24, but as all flights were canceled, they purchased tickets for the afternoon of the 25th.
According to Ms. Li, they were staying in Yalong Bay, where the hotel was right by the beach, causing strong winds due to the sea view. On the morning of the 24th, people were not allowed to go to the beach anymore.
“At that time, the waves were already one or two meters high. In the afternoon, the hotel entrance was guarded by security, and no one was allowed to go out without a good reason. We stayed in the hotel the whole time,” Ms. Li said. Hotel staff had been reinforcing the lobby glass since yesterday afternoon, “The glass felt like it was about to shatter, it was already bending, but luckily it held up.”
Ms. Li mentioned that the strongest intensity of the typhoon was around 7 p.m. on the 24th. At that time, she was getting ready to go to the restaurant when the power went out suddenly.
“I thought it was just the restaurant, but when I walked to the hotel lobby, I found the whole hotel was out of power, with only emergency lights on. They said not only our hotel was affected, but this entire line of hotels was also out of power. Many people were in the lobby, and after about one or two hours, the power came back on,” Ms. Li stated. She also mentioned that due to water leaking into the room and the windows shaking, she was frightened and even ran into the hotel corridor until around midnight when the glass stopped shaking, but she could still hear strong winds.
Around 4 p.m. on the 25th, Ms. Li set out on the road to the airport. “Today (the 25th), the rain has lessened a lot. We were informed earlier that the flight would be delayed until around 7 p.m., so I decided to go to the airport to check,” she said.
According to the official news conference in Hainan, “Swordfish” caused power outages in 557,000 households. As of 9 a.m. on the 25th, a total of 102,500 people in the province were affected by the disaster.