HONG KONG, Sept 2: Hong Kong narrowly escaped a direct hit on Tuesday evening from a ferocious “double-eye” typhoon, the most severe storm to pass through the region this year.

Schools were shut, the stock market and many offices closed, and flights in and out of the territory cancelled as people hurried home with Typhoon Dujuan racing westward towards the former British colony from Taiwan where it killed two people earlier in the day.

Gale-force winds lashed the territory through on Tuesday evening but between 10pm and 11pm, it veered slightly north of the territory of 6.8 million people after roaring across the South China Sea at 30 kilometres an hour — double the speed of most tropical storms.

It had been on course to score a direct hit with Hong Kong, but in the final two hours veered slightly north, dumping heavy rain and uprooting trees but leaving the city relatively unscathed.

Radar detected a rare “double-eye” in the heart of the typhoon. The phenomenon, in which an outer eye rings the eye of the storm, is seen in severe cyclones and leads to a chain reaction within the storm, maximising its impact.

Previous double-eye typhoons include Typhoon Kigori, which killed 42 people in the Philippines in July 2000, and Typhoon Hope — which killed 12 people and injured 260 in Hong Kong in 1979.

Meteorologists in Hong Kong on Tuesday evening raised the storm signal to “nine”, the second highest typhoon alert and a level at which people are advised to stay indoors and keep away from windows.

The signal was lowered to an “eight” shortly after 10pm. —dpa