美国有线新闻 CNN 台风天鸽侵袭中国东南部地区（在线收听）

People in southeast China are measuring the scope of the damage caused by a powerful typhoon that hit yesterday morning. It was called typhoon Hato.

It brought powerful winds and flooding to this region and several deaths were blamed in the storm.

One thing unique about it was that Hato wasn't initially very powerful as it moved toward Hong Kong. It was about the equivalent of an average tropical storm. But that changed in just 24 hours before it made landfall. Hato's wind speeds nearly doubled in that time before the storm crashed into the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

A local weather service said it was the strongest storm to hit the area in five years. Hato's maximum wind speeds were around 108 miles per hour, which is almost the strength of a category three hurricane. It made landfall during high tide, bringing large waves, flooding and damage to the coast. Schools, businesses and the stock market were closed.

And then as Hato moved west over China, it passed over a densely populated area, more than 60 million people were in the path of the system. The threat wasn't as great inland though tough. Typhoons like hurricanes are fueled by war water and they general lose their strength as they pass over land.