Super Typhoon Sinlaku hit the American Pacific Islands with waves reaching 12 meters high.

Super Typhoon Sinlaku struck the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It brought hurricane-force winds and torrential rain. The winds ripped off tin roofs and forced people to take shelter from flying tree branches, according to Associated Press.

Sinlaku raged across the Northern Mariana Islands for several hours before dawn on April 15. It caused extensive damage to the islands of Tinian and Saipan, home to nearly 50,000 people.

In the village of Susupe, Saipan, winds tore the roof off a commercial building, flipped a car, and snapped tree branches. Island resident Dong Min Ly captured video of his car being thrown onto the roofs of other cars parked in the lot of his apartment building. The wind even tore off part of his balcony railing.

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"I hope people will pay attention and help. The damage here is truly enormous," Lee wrote in a Facebook post.

Saipan is a U.S. territory approximately 6115 kilometers west of Hawaii.

The Chamorro seafaring people settled it and the neighboring islands more than 3500 years ago. In the 17th century, it was colonized by Spain, then Germany, and then Japan.

The United States and Japan fought one of the bloodiest battles of World War II on Saipan in 1944, resulting in the deaths of more than 50,000 Japanese and American soldiers, as well as local civilians.

After the war, the United States administered Saipan on behalf of the United Nations. Since 1975, it has been a US territory and part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Jaden Sanchez, a spokesman for the Saipan mayor's office, spoke of flooding, uprooted trees, and downed power lines. There were no reports of casualties, he said.

The typhoon, the most powerful tropical cyclone on Earth this year, was accompanied by sustained winds of up to 150 mph (240 km/h) upon landfall, according to the National Weather Service.

According to the weather service, storm-force winds and heavy rains caused flooding in Guam, a southern US territory with several American military bases and a population of approximately 170,000. Previously, flooding affected the outer islands and atolls of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia.

The American Red Cross and its partners have placed more than 1000 residents in shelters on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, said organization spokeswoman Stephanie Fox.

"The rain was penetrating everywhere."

"The wood and tin houses couldn't handle it," said Glen Hunter, who grew up on Saipan, the largest island in the Northern Mariana Islands and their capital, known for its resorts, snorkeling and golf.

Hunter, who has lived through many typhoons, told the Associated Press that this one felt the most powerful yet. Rain seeped into every crevice of his concrete house, and he saw at least three tin roofs blow past his yard.

"It was a losing battle because the rain was everywhere," he emphasized. "Every house, no matter what material it was made of, was simply flooded."

Ed Propst, an employee in the governor's office, heard "banging and ringing all night."

"We haven't received any information at this point—knock on wood—about any deaths," he assured, explaining that residents heeded warnings and took shelter from the typhoon.

According to Ken Klishulte, acting chief of science and operations for the National Weather Service in Guam, winds of 75 mph (121 km/h) or higher are expected to continue through the afternoon of April 15 as the eye of the typhoon moves northwest of Saipan and Tinian. Even after winds gradually weaken to around 50 mph (80 km/h), they will remain too strong for people to safely venture outdoors for at least 24 hours.

He said Sinlaku would begin to drift toward sparsely populated volcanic islands in the northern Mariana Islands.

Recovery from the 2018 typhoon is not yet complete.

In Guam, where Typhoon Mawar left people without power for several days in 2023, the US military warned personnel to take shelter. The military controls about a third of Guam, a key hub for US forces in the Pacific.

Tourism-dependent Saipan, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the Pacific, was still recovering from Super Typhoon Yutu in 2018 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The economy has yet to recover.

Utah destroyed 85% of the campus of Northern Mariana College in Saipan, according to the school's president, Galvin Deleon Guerrero. The institution received a $100 million grant for restoration.

"Just when we finally started to recover and rebuild, we were hit by another typhoon," he said with frustration. "Climate change is real."

Guerrero worries about people who still suffer from post-traumatic stress after Yutu.

"We're an incredibly resilient people," Galvin DeLeon assured, noting that he himself is Chamorro, an indigenous people of the Mariana Islands. "But that doesn't mean we have to deal with this so often."

Declaration of emergency

President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for Guam and the Mariana Islands. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it was coordinating assistance across multiple agencies, deploying nearly 100 FEMA personnel and other staff to the site.

Super typhoons are equivalent to Category 4 or 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic and are accompanied by winds of at least 240 km/h (150 mph). Over the past 80 years, the Guam Typhoon Warning Center has recorded more than 300 super typhoons.

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Typhoons are very common in the Pacific Ocean, but the peak season coincides with the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from summer to fall, explained Jason Nicholls, lead international forecaster for AccuWeather.

"In principle, tropical systems in the western Pacific can form at any time of year," Nicholls concluded. "But their appearance in April is a bit unusual."

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