China’s Haikou Meilan Airport Cancels About 250 Flights Over Typhoon Sarika

The airport Meilan in Haikou, the capital of Chinese island province Hainan, cancels about 250 flights till Tuesday over the upcoming typhoon Sarika, the website of the government of the province said.

BEIJING (Sputnik) – The Haikou Meilan International Airport stopped working at 23:30 local time (15:30 GMT) on Monday, but the air traffic is expected to be restored after 16:30 local time (08:30 GMT), according to the local authorities.

The typhoon Sarika is expected reach the south-east coast of Hainan in the early hours on Tuesday and to become the most powerful and devastating for the island over the last decade.

On Monday, a level three warning signal was issued by Hong Kong Observatory, as tropical cyclone Sarika was estimated to be at a distance of some 500 kilometers (310 miles) away from the autonomous territory of China.

So far Sarika has resulted in the death of 24 people in central Vietnam, and killed two more in the Philippines while displacing 150,000 people, according to media reports.