Famous Chinese Shopping City Books

Typhoon Longwang Wikipedia

Infobox hurricane | name=Super Typhoon Longwang
| image location=Typh longwang sept28.jpg
| image name= Typhoon Longwang in the Pacific Ocean on September 28, 2005.
| duration=September 26|Sept. 26 - October 3|Oct. 3, 2005 (local time)
| highest winds=130 knots <br>(240 km/h)
| total damages (USD)=$150 million (preliminary estimates; China only) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4305296.stm
| total fatalities=96 direct (1 in Taiwan, 95 in China)
| areas affected=Far southern areas of the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Fujian Province and other parts of eastern People's Republic of China|China
| hurricane season=2005 Pacific typhoon season

Super Typhoon Longwang (Maring) (Traditional Chinese: ??????, Simplified Chinese: ??????) was the fourth Super Typhoon of the 2005 Pacific typhoon season, with maximum wind speeds of 130 knots (240 km/h) at peak intensity.

The system formed about 335 nautical miles south-southeast of Iwo Jima, Japan on September 26. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center initiated a warning for it at 00:00 UTC the same day. It was upgraded to Tropical Storm Longwang six hours later. Longwang is Chinese for Dragon King. At 03:00 UTC September 27, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center upgraded it to a typhoon. It continued to increase in strength as it tracked west to west-northwest towards Taiwan. PAGASA named the storm Maring for The Philippines|Philippine Philippine area of responsibility|warnings on September 29. It made landfall near Hualien City, Taiwan on October 2.

The typhoon was upgraded to Tropical_cyclone_severity_categories#Categories_and_ranking|Category 2 strength on September 27, and again to Category 3 strength later that day. It was further upgraded to Category 4 strength at 06:00 UTC the next day, and finally on September 29 it was upgraded to a Super Typhoon (although it would still have been a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale if it were an Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic tropical cyclone). The next day at 09:00 UTC, the storm had weakened sufficiently for it to be declassified as a Super Typhoon.

After pounding Taiwan on October 2 (October 1 UTC), Longwang entered Taiwan Strait as it kept weakening. It lashed Fujian Province as well, making its second landfall at 9:35pm local time (13:35 UTC) as a minimal typhoon.

The typhoon, which had earlier killed one man in Taiwan, and one woman was reported missing after being caught in currents and dragged into a raging river http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/10/02/longwang.ap/index.html, also caused massive landslides. Some military students were washed away by floodwater and mudslides in Fujian province. 57 of them have been rescued, 80 were found dead and 5 are still missing. Apart from the military students, another 15 deaths were reported.

For many parts of southern and Eastern China, Typhoon Longwang came on the heels of Typhoons Typhoon Talim|Talim, Typhoon Khanun|Khanun and Typhoon Damrey|Damrey, which killed more than 130 people.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued its final advisory on Longwang as a minimal typhoon over China, 200 nautical miles (370 km) west of Taipei at 21:00 UTC October 2.

• Weather Underground's tracking chart of http://maps.wunderground.com/data/images/wp200519.gif Typhoon Longwang (Maring).

Last Modified:   2005-11-04