Two million evacuated as typhoon slams China's east coast

obmar · Site Admin Joined: 14 Apr 2006 Posts: 5697

2007/09/19
Two million evacuated as typhoon slams China's east coast
Joan Feng, AFP

SHANGHAI, Wed.:

Typhoon Wipha has slammed into China’s densely-populated east coast, sparking the evacuation of around two million people and threatening the financial hub of Shanghai.
The storm made landfall in Zhejiang province overnight with winds of up to 160 kilometres an hour, state media said, and churned toward Shanghai amid warnings it could be the most destructive typhoon to hit here in a decade.

The China Meteorological Administration said the typhoon was expected to move north-northwest, bringing torrential rains to the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian, Jiangsu and the Shanghai region.

Although the weather was fine in Shanghai early today, the financial metropolis battened down the hatches, closing schools and advising it could halt trading on the city’s stock exchange if the weather worsened.

It ordered the evacuation of 291,000 people from low-lying areas and called ships and ferries back to port, according to the Shanghai Daily.
Similar measures have been taken along the eastern seaboard, media reports said, with at least 1.5 million people evacuated from their homes in Zhejiang province alone. Xinhua news agency called the evacuations the largest in the province since 1949.

Just one death has been reported so far, an unidentified man in Shanghai who was electrocuted yesterday as he stepped into waters that had been electrically charged by a light box, the Shanghai Daily said.

Xinhua said more than 80 streets in the city were flooded yesterday by advance rains from the typhoon, while nearly 50 flights were delayed and more than 20 cancelled at its two airports.

Zhang Jiayi, deputy chief of the Shanghai flood control headquarters, was quoted by the agency on Tuesday as saying the city of 17 million was “facing its most severe test in decades”. However, further information on the toll wrought by the storm was scarce today as it was causing power failures and communications disruptions.

While the typhoon had initially been expected to hit Shanghai head-on, heavily-populated neighbouring Zhejiang instead bore the initial brunt of the storm, which weakened slightly before making landfall.

Wipha has also caused the postponement of two matches in the Women’s Soccer World Cup, which China is hosting.

Expectations of continued heavy rains were a concern as downpours preceding the typhoon have filled some rivers and reservoirs to their warning marks, Xinhua said.

Typhoons regularly hit China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea towards the end of August and in September.

Earlier this month Typhoon Fitow struck Japan, killing seven people, while last Sunday, Typhoon Nari killed at least nine in South Korea.