The Philippines and neighboring Asian nations are bracing for Super Typhoon Ragasa, believed to be the year’s most powerful storm.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Thousands of people were evacuated from northern Philippine villages and schools and offices were closed Monday in the archipelago and neighboring Taiwan as one of this year’s strongest typhoons threatened to cause flooding and landslides on its way to southeastern China.

Super Typhoon Ragasa (Nando) struck the northern Philippines on Monday, September 22, with winds up to 285 km/h, forcing over 10,000 people to evacuate across northern and central Luzon, according to the government.

The Chinese city of Shenzhen was preparing Monday to evacuate 400,000 people while residents of the northern Philippines sought shelter from gale-force winds as Super Typhoon Ragasa headed on a collision course with southern China.

More than 10,000 evacuees sheltered in schools and evacuation centers in the Philippines on Monday as heavy rains and gale-force winds from Super Typhoon Ragasa lashed the country's far north.

A supertyphoon, which made landfall in the northern Philippines, cutting power and forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents, was headed toward China.

In November 2024, I helped cover the assassination threat against President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. for The New York Times. Last month, the reporter Jonathan Wolfe and I wrote about the unusual collision of two Chinese ships, as they chased a Philippine Coast Guard vessel in contested waters of the South China Sea.

An “extreme threat to life and property” persists in the Babuyan Islands as the area remains under Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal No. 5 due to Super Typhoon Nando (international name: Ragasa), according to state meteorologists.