The most powerful storm to hit Shanghai in 70 years hit on Monday, cancelling flights and closing highways as Typhoon Bebinca lashed the city with strong winds and torrential rain.
City officials said a red alert had been issued and some coastal residents had been evacuated.
The storm made landfall on the coastal area of Pudong’s Lingang New City, east of the city on Monday morning, the China Meteorological Administration said.
Shortly after Bebinca made landfall, state broadcaster CCTV said it was the most powerful typhoon to hit Shanghai since Typhoon Gloria in 1949.
Many businesses were already closed for the Mid-Autumn Festival public holiday, and the city’s 25 million residents have been advised not to leave their homes.
All flights at Shanghai’s two main airports have been cancelled, and ferry services and some trains have been suspended.
At 1:00 a.m. local time (1700 GMT) highways were closed, and a speed limit of 40 kilometres (25 miles) per hour was imposed on roads within the city.
At rush hour, live video feeds showed Shanghai’s normally jam-packed streets nearly empty, and its famous skyline obscured by thick fog.
Nine thousand residents were evacuated from Chongming district, an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, officials said.
Footage from the northern Baoshan district showed strong winds tearing down rows of trees along the river.
Shanghai’s flood control headquarters told CCTV it had already received dozens of reports of storm-related incidents, mostly fallen trees and billboards.
CCTV broadcast footage of a reporter on the coast of neighbouring Zhejiang province, where waves crashed onto the beach under overcast skies.
“If I go out in a storm I can hardly speak,” the reporter said.
“All you can see is wave after wave on the ocean’s surface, each one higher than the last.”
At least four people were killed and 95 injured when another typhoon named Yagi passed through China’s southern Hainan island this month, according to national meteorological officials.
Bebinca also passed through Japan and the central and southern Philippines, where six people were killed by falling trees.
Bebinca is expected to move northwest, bringing heavy rain and strong winds to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, CCTV said.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, which scientists say are fueling climate change and making extreme weather more frequent and intense.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
