A massive surge from a powerful typhoon smashed through the glass facade of a coastal hotel in southern China, washing terrified guests into lobbies and into streets inundated by black, fast-moving water, social media videos and local reports showed. Footage circulating online and reported by international outlets captured a wall of water that left people clinging to furniture, some swept off their feet, while rescuers scrambled to pull survivors to higher ground.

State news agency Xinhua said nearly 2.2 million people across Guangdong province had been relocated as of Wednesday afternoon, as storm surge, torrential rains and fierce winds battered cities and rural counties alike. Local authorities reported widespread damage to homes, roads and coastal infrastructure and temporarily suspended ferry and port operations; airlines canceled flights and rail services were disrupted in the region, although companies gave varied accounts of the scale of operational impact.

“It’s like the end of the world … I never expected to see it as bad as this,” said IT manager Paul Yendle near a heavily damaged restaurant in the Tseung Kwan O area, underscoring the human shock in communities that often brace for seasonal storms. Emergency teams and municipal workers raced to clear debris and restore temporary shelters, while hospitals treated people for hypothermia, lacerations and blunt trauma.

Official casualty figures remained fragmentary in the immediate aftermath as rescue teams prioritized search and evacuation. Authorities said investigations were under way into the hotel incident and other sites where sudden inundation trapped residents and visitors. Local officials urged residents to comply with evacuation orders and warned of continued flooding as rivers responded to intense rain upstream.

The storm’s arrival reverberates beyond the immediate humanitarian emergency. Guangdong is a linchpin of global manufacturing, home to factories and ports that feed complex supply chains for electronics, automotive parts and consumer goods. Analysts warned that prolonged disruption could ripple through international markets already sensitive to logistical shocks, while insurers and firms recalibrated risk exposure to extreme weather events.

Climate scientists say the episode aligns with a broader pattern: as the planet warms, tropical storms are becoming more intense and capable of producing heavier rainfall and higher storm surges. “We are already seeing the fingerprints of human-driven warming on the most extreme tropical cyclone events,” said a climate researcher not involved in the local response. The disaster is likely to intensify calls for stronger climate adaptation measures in coastal megacities, as well as for international cooperation on resilience planning.

Diplomatically, China’s rapid domestic mobilization of resources has limited the role of outside aid so far, though foreign governments and companies with nationals in the region closely monitored the situation and issued travel and safety advisories. For the thousands displaced and for families searching for missing relatives, the immediate imperative remains rescue and shelter; for the wider world, the storm is a stark reminder of how local climate disasters can carry global economic and humanitarian consequences.