The National Weather Service (NWS) said that the "entirety" of Rota was in the eye of Super Typhoon Bavi, with winds of up to 180 miles (290 kilometers) per hour before moving "ever so slowly away" westwards.But the group of islands – several thousand kilometres (miles) west of the mainland United States – was by midday still being buffeted by fierce winds and driving rain that left residents holed up indoors.When the storm first hit early Monday, the NWS urged Rota's roughly 1,500 residents on X to "treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to an interior room or shelter NOW!"Local authorities on Rota -– the southernmost part of the Northern Marianas, less than 80 km (50 miles) north of Guam -- said they had received reports of "major damages", but with communications difficult the extent was unclear."We are hanging in there. We are experiencing heavy winds and flooding here... Some people are already reporting major damages," the Rota Municipal Operations Center's public information officer Lou Rosario said.Rosario added that some cellphone services were down because of a fallen tower.
Business owners were boarding up windows on Sunday in Guam, where roads were practically deserted except for police cars and surfers enjoying the huge waves © Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP
