Eastern China was hit by strong winds and rain on Thursday, with Typhoon Muifa forcing 1.6 million people out of their homes and suspending most flights from Shanghai’s main airport.
Muifa is the strongest hurricane to hit Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, since official records began in 1949, state-run CCTV reported.
No deaths or injuries were initially reported.
CCTV added that at least 426,000 people have left their homes in Shanghai and 1.2 million have been taken to temporary shelters in neighboring Zhejiang province.
The rains caused traffic congestion and flooding in areas of the Yangtze River Delta, an important industrial center of the country.
Huge waves washed ashore in Hangzhou Bay, south of Shanghai, and national radio reported a landslide in Ninhai County, Zhejiang Province.
With winds of up to 125 km/h, the storm made landfall in Shanghai’s Fengxian district at 12:30 PM on Thursday (Wednesday afternoon in Brazil).
A few hours ago, authorities canceled flights to China’s main financial center.
Typhoon Muifa struck the city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang on Wednesday, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
Air traffic slowly resumed in Shanghai as the storm moved north, but most flights from the city’s two airports were canceled Thursday morning, according to the website Flightradar24.
Operations at the Shanghai and Ningbo container terminals, the largest in Asia, were suspended due to the typhoon, but operations are expected to resume this Thursday, according to port officials.
Authorities also ordered fishing vessels from the Yellow Sea and Bohai Strait to remain anchored in the port during the typhoon’s passage.
The incident hit eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Thursday morning. According to the Central Meteorological Observatory, the wind speed dropped to 90 kilometers per hour.
Shanghai and the neighboring region were hit by Typhoon Hinnamnoor last week, which caused school closures in Zhejiang areas.
Muifa was the 12th typhoon to hit China this year.
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© Agence France-Press
source: Noticias
