Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Super Typhoon Sinlaku hit Northern Mariana Islands with 150-mph winds, causing damage.
- Mayor Camacho reports flying debris and collapsed structures as residents seek shelter.
- President Trump approved emergency declarations for Guam and Northern Mariana Islands.
WASHINGTON — A super typhoon with ferocious winds and pounding rains was battering a group of remote U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean, forcing residents to seek shelter from flying tree limbs and collapsed buildings.
The center of the monster storm Super Typhoon Sinlaku was roaring along the Northern Mariana Islands early Wednesday local time, the National Weather Service said.
It's the strongest tropical typhoon on Earth so far this year, packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph and likely to bring widespread power outages to the islands home to roughly 50,000 people.
Some areas were already seeing extensive flooding.
"It's hitting us hard," Mayor Ramon "RB" Jose Blas Camacho of Saipan, told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "It's so difficult for us to respond with this heavy rain, heavy wind to rescue people. Objects are just flying left and right."
Camacho said some people have been rescued. He said trees were thrown about and wooden and tin structures had collapsed. He said he hoped the glass door to his office wouldn't break.
"It's already bending. That's how powerful this is," he said.
The typhoon slowed to a crawl as it approached the islands, raising fears that the fierce winds wouldn't go away quickly and worsen its impact.
"This is not going to be an easy night for anyone across Tinian or Saipan. This is going to be a loud night," said Landon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the weather service. Most residents "will wake up to a different island," he said during a Facebook video broadcast.
Saipan is the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands. Conditions were expected to worsen overnight, the National Weather Service said.
Camacho was concerned about the storm's slow speed.
"That's the scary part, " He said, adding that "it's better to speed up so it can just exit."
Farther south, in Guam, a U.S. territory with several American military installations and about 170,000 residents, "torrential rainfall is occurring and flash flooding is ongoing," the weather service said. We ask that everyone remain indoors and away from windows."
Aydlett described the typhoon Tuesday night as "a very slow, gradual crawl."
"This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation," he said.
Flash flooding was expected to continue along the two islands into Wednesday. About 50,000 people live on three islands in the area, with the most on Saipan, known for its laid-back resorts, snorkeling and golf as well as the capital.
While it's expected to weaken slightly over the next few days, Sinlaku was crossing the islands as a Category 4 typhoon.
Saipan was the site of one of World War II's bloodiest battles in the Pacific, in which more than 50,000 Japanese and American soldiers and local civilians died.
In Guam, where Typhoon Mawar knocked out power for days in 2023, U.S. military officials warned personnel to prepare for the storm and shelter in place. The military controls about one-third of the island's land, a critical hub for U.S. forces in the Pacific.
Before turning toward Guam and the Northern Marianas, the storm left significant damage to the outer islands and atolls of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia, Aydlett said from his weather service station on Guam.
Glen Hunter, who grew up on Saipan, has weathered numerous typhoons.
"We sit in what they call 'Typhoon Alley,'" he said early Tuesday after waking up to strong gusts and seeing downed trees.
For the most part, residents live in sturdy, fully concrete homes and those in substandard wooden houses with tin roofs tend to stay with family or in government shelters, he said.
Tourism-dependent Saipan was still recovering from 2018's Super Typhoon Yutu when the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, he recalled. The economy has yet to rebound, he said.
President Donald Trump on Saturday approved emergency disaster declarations for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, allowing for additional help with emergency services.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it is coordinating support across multiple agencies, dispatching nearly 100 FEMA staff as well as personnel from the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
A super typhoon is a name given to the strongest tropical cyclones that brew in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, where Earth's most intense storms usually form.
Monitored by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Guam, super typhoons are the equivalent of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic, with winds of at least 150 mph. There have been more than 300 super typhoons identified since the warning center started using that name nearly 80 years ago.
Contributing: Kathy McCormack, Gabriela Aoun Angueira and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
