Severe Tropical Storm Fung-Wong to edge closer to Hong Kong next week

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A severe tropical storm has formed east of the Philippines and is expected to come within 800km (497 miles) of Hong Kong early next week, the city’s weather forecaster has said.

The Hong Kong Observatory said on Friday that Severe Tropical Storm Fung-Wong was centred about 1,780km east of Manila and would edge closer to the city over the next couple of days.

The latest forecast track shows that the storm will enter within 800km of the city on Monday next week and reach its closest position on Wednesday, before heading towards Taiwan.

Fung-Wong, which means “phoenix” in Cantonese, is not expected to come within 400km of the city.

The Observatory said the storm was expected to continue intensifying gradually and move west-northwest at about 22 km/h (13.7mph) across the western North Pacific.