Shanghai was brought to a standstill on Monday by what authorities say was the strongest typhoon to directly hit the Chinese financial hub in more than seven decades, with flights, trains and highways suspended during a national holiday.
Typhoon Bebinca made landfall in an industrial suburb southeast of the metropolis of 25 million people at about 7:30 a.m. local time. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) said it packed top wind speeds of 130 kilometers per hour (80 mph), the equivalent of a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane.
The China Meteorological Administration recorded wind speeds of 151 kph (94 mph) near the typhoon’s eye when it made landfall, and state media described it as the strongest storm to hit Shanghai since 1949.
The administration on Monday issued a red typhoon warning, its most severe alert, warning of gale force winds, heavy rainfall and coastal floods in large swathes of eastern China.
The powerful storm has disrupted travel plans for holidaymakers during the Mid-Autumn festival, or Moon Festival, a three-day national holiday that started on Sunday.
All flights at Shanghai’s two international airports have been canceled since 8 p.m. Sunday. The city also suspended its ferry services, halted some train lines and closed ports, bridges and highways on Monday.
Many tourist destinations in the city, including Shanghai Disney Resort, were also shut on Monday. Videos on Douyin, China’s version of Tiktok, show Disney staff taping trash bins to fences at the park.
More than 414,000 people in Shanghai had been evacuated to safety by midnight Monday, with exhibition centers and school gyms turned into makeshift shelters, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Similar safety measures were also adopted in the neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu. Across the region, more than 1,600 flights had been canceled as of Monday afternoon, according to CCTV.
On Chinese social media, some Shanghai residents reported power and water outages on Monday morning. Many had rushed to stock up on food and supplies over the weekend.
The typhoon is expected to quickly weaken into a tropical storm as it moves inland toward the west.
Bebinca is the second major storm to hit China this month, following deadly Super Typhoon Yagi, the world’s second most powerful tropical cyclone so far this year.
Yagi killed four people in the southern province of Hainan after making landfall on September 6 with maximum sustained wind speeds of 230 kph (140 mph), the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, before wreaking devastation across parts of Southeast Asia.
Scientists have found that hotter oceans caused by the human-caused climate crisis are leading storms to intensify more rapidly.
Shanghai is generally not in the direct path of strong typhoons, which typically make landfall further south in China. Prior to Bebinca, the city had only been directly hit by two typhoons – in 1949 and 2022 – plus a handful of severe tropical storms, according to data from the China Meteorological Administration.
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