Hong Kong International Airport gradually resumed operation Friday though thousands of passengers were still stranded in the airport after Typhoon Prapiroon struck the city.

The airport operation was resuming on Friday morning, with eight flights have departed and 14 flights arrived at Hong Kong by 08:00 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Friday, the Hong Kong Airport Authority said.

Cathay Pacific Airways announced that it plans to return to its normal flight schedule as soon as possible from 0900 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Friday, with 89 of its flights about to depart on Friday morning.

The airline also plans to deploy additional aircraft and crew in an attempt to clear the backlog of passengers who were stranded as a result of bad weather. Cathay Pacific found 650 hotel rooms for these stranded passengers on Thursday.

In face of heavy rainstorm, two Chinese mainland cargo vessels, carrying 91 people in total, were respectively besieged by rough seas at southwest of Hong Kong on Thursday. The Hong Kong Government Flying Service was called on to carry out rescue operations. All 23 people from one of the ships were saved and so were 56 people of the other ship. The rescue operation is still underway on Friday.

Typhoon Prapiroon struck Hong Kong on Thursday, bringing strong wind and heavy rain. Up to 3,000 passengers were stranded at the airport while over 800 flights were affected, and some of the sea and land traffic halted.

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2006)