Giant waves hit the coastline of the country’s southern island of Jeju yesterday as
typhoon Sanba approaches South Korea

South Korea was yesterday bracing for the arrival of its third major typhoon in two months, with school classes cancelled, ferry routes closed and thousands of ships sheltering in port.
Typhoon Sanba—packing gusts of up to 48 metres per second—was moving northward at a speed of 26kmh about 50 miles off the Japanese island of Okinawa yesterday morning, Seoul’s weather service said.
The typhoon killed one person and injured four in southwestern Japan, according to the Kyodo news agency, which added that another person remains missing.
It also caused blackouts to 100,000 households, Kyodo said.
Sanba is expected to pass South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju today morning before pounding the peninsula in the evening, arriving more than 50 miles southeast of the capital before churning northwards, Seoul’s weather service said.
Authorities have issued severe wind and heavy rain alerts for most of the southern coastal regions, warning of rainfall of up to 11.8 inches per hour in some regions. About 4,800 ships in the southwestern port city of Yeosu have been taken out of the typhoon’s path, while officials in the city and nearby areas have been put on high alert.
School authorities in Jeju have ordered all schools in the island closed today.
The government may issue the same order tomorrow for the southern regions of the peninsula, Yonhap news agency said, adding dozens of ferry routes to the island and along the southwestern coast have been suspended.
Powerful typhoons Bolaven and Tembin, which struck the peninsula late August, left more than 20 people dead in the South, damaging farmlands and hundreds of houses and causing power cuts that affected millions of homes. AFP