More than 801,000 people had been relocated for safety in China’s southern Guangdong province by Sunday after Typhoon Noul came ashore with powerful winds and heavy rain, according to the official Xinhua News Agency as cited by the Associated Press. China’s national weather centre said the storm made landfall along the Huidong County coast in Huizhou at approximately 3:50 a.m. on July 26. The system subsequently weakened as it moved inland, but authorities warned that the danger was shifting from coastal wind toward flooding, landslides and prolonged rain.

The National Meteorological Center said Noul carried winds rated at Force 14 near its centre when it made landfall. Its classification then changed quickly: the centre reported that it weakened from a severe typhoon to a typhoon later Sunday morning, while AP’s subsequent update described it as a tropical storm farther inland. The changing label did not mean an immediate end to the emergency. Heavy rain was still forecast for southern Guangdong and southeastern Fujian, with inland areas exposed after the storm’s strongest winds left the coast.

Relocation figures expanded as the threatened area widened and agencies updated their counts. Reuters reported that more than 340,000 people had been moved in Guangdong as of Saturday, before landfall. An earlier AP report, citing state-owned China National Radio, put the figure above 715,000. The later Xinhua count carried by AP raised it beyond 801,000 as of Sunday. Those totals are snapshots from different stages of the operation, not interchangeable estimates, and the latest figure does not mean that every relocated resident lost a home.

China’s weather centre renewed a red alert for rainstorms and a yellow alert for severe convective weather on Sunday morning. It called for stronger precautions against flash floods, landslides and mudslides. The Ministry of Water Resources also upgraded its flood-control emergency response for several areas, including Guangdong, because of the risk of mountain flooding. This inland phase can remain dangerous after a cyclone weakens because saturated slopes, swollen waterways and damaged roads continue to threaten communities beyond the landfall zone.

Hong Kong endured its own disruption as Noul passed close to the financial hub. Authorities raised the city’s tropical-cyclone warning to Signal No. 9 early Sunday before lowering it as the storm moved away. The airport authority said about 350 flights were cancelled on Sunday and roughly 2,000 passengers were stranded at the airport over the weekend, AP reported. At least 21 people were injured across Hong Kong during the typhoon period, according to city authorities. Flight operations were expected to resume gradually, but schedules faced a lengthy recovery.

On the mainland, rail suspensions and other transport restrictions added to the disruption across Guangdong. China’s National Development and Reform Commission allocated 100 million yuan, about $14.8 million, to support recovery work in the province, including damaged infrastructure. State media described Noul as the strongest typhoon to make landfall in China so far this year. It was also the third typhoon to strike China within a month, following Bavi and Maysak, a sequence that has repeatedly tested emergency personnel and flood-control systems.

Noul had already caused harm before reaching China. At least three people died in the Philippines, where flooding and rain displaced residents as the storm crossed the region, according to the Philippine government’s disaster-response agency cited by AP. The system also brought heavy rain to parts of Taiwan while passing south of the island without making landfall. No comparable death toll had been reported in mainland China or Hong Kong in the cited Sunday updates, and any later casualty assessment should be separated from these initial figures.

The relocation of more than 800,000 people demonstrates both the storm’s scale and the value of acting before impact. Moving residents out of exposed districts can sharply reduce immediate loss of life, but a large top-line number is not by itself proof that every vulnerable person was reached or that shelters, medical services and return plans are adequate. The next measure of the response will be whether authorities can maintain support as rain moves inland, restore transport safely and publish detailed local damage and casualty information without delay.

Guangdong’s importance as a manufacturing, port and logistics centre also means the disruption can travel beyond the storm’s physical path. Cancelled flights in Hong Kong, halted trains and damaged roads affect workers, visitors and supply chains at the same time. The incentive after landfall is to restore movement quickly, yet reopening before inspections are complete can create a second layer of risk. Transparent thresholds for resuming rail, air and road operations matter as much as dramatic evacuation totals before the storm.

No single typhoon can establish a climate trend, and Noul’s precise development and track require meteorological analysis rather than political shorthand. The immediate policy lesson is more concrete. A weaker wind category does not end a cyclone disaster when floodwater is still rising, and repeated landfalls leave less time to repair infrastructure and replenish emergency capacity. For southern China and neighbouring economies, resilience will be judged not only by the speed of mass relocation, but by what happens after the cameras move on: safe returns, honest accounting and investment that reduces the danger before the next warning is issued.