Typhoon Bavi was lashing Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands with powerful winds and heavy rain on Monday, downing power lines and prompting warnings of potential flash flooding in the U.S. territories.
Bavi moved over Rota, one of the Northern Mariana Islands, on Monday with the force of a Category 5 hurricane, according to the National Weather Service.
No deaths or injuries had been reported in Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands as of early Monday afternoon.
But as the storm approached on Sunday night, there was an island-wide power outage on Saipan, the capital of the Northern Marianas, according to the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, the island’s electricity provider.
The Guam Power Authority said on Monday that strong winds and gusts had downed power lines and caused outages on the island, and that more outages were likely.
But 12 to 16 inches of rainfall had been forecast for much of the region through Tuesday, with up to 20 inches possible for Rota. A typhoon warning and a flood watch were effect for the region, and Rota was under an extreme wind warning.
As the storm approached this week, the authorities in Guam, which has a population of about 150,000 people, activated the highest level of a four-tier alert system and opened evacuation shelters. They also restricted access to U.S. military facilities on the island.
As of Monday afternoon, all flights had been canceled at main airports on Guam and the Northern Marianas, and operations were suspended at several ports.
Bavi is hitting a region that is still recovering from Typhoon Sinlaku, a storm that caused widespread damage in April.
This is a developing story.
