Super Typhoon Chaba struck the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam over three days beginning Saturday, killing two people and leaving a third unaccounted for, officials reported Wednesday. The storm carried sustained winds of 290 kilometers per hour (180 mph).
One of the two fatalities in the Marianas was a Chinese woman believed to have drowned after being swept into the sea while photographing the storm. In Guam, a surfer who had been riding large swells was carried over a reef Tuesday and remained missing, authorities said.
Damage to crops and public infrastructure in the Northern Marianas could exceed 18 million dollars, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinator Vicky Villagomez, who added that a request had been submitted for President George Bush to declare the islands a major disaster area. Bush had previously declared a state of emergency there following Typhoon Tingting in late June.
The Northern Marianas is a chain of 17 islands with roughly 80,000 residents, located about 2,400 kilometers south of Tokyo. Guam, a strategically important U.S. military base roughly equidistant from Japan, China, and the Philippines, has a population of around 152,000.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in August 2004, in its own words.