AFP :
Typhoon Chan-hom, one of the most powerful systems to strike eastern China in decades, has disrupted air, rail and sea transport after forcing the evacuation of more than 1 million people from the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, state media Xinhua reported.
The typhoon, which landed on the coast of Zhejiang province but soon veered back to sea, brought heavy rain to Shanghai as well as to the provinces of Anhui and Fujian, beside Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
No casualties had been reported by midday Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Authorities in Zhejiang said the province may face 1.9 billion yuan ($410 million) in economic losses, with agriculture the worst affected, Xinhua said.
Typhoon Chan-hom was packing winds of 162 kilometres per hour as it hit the city of Zhoushan on Saturday, but then weakened from an earlier “super typhoon” status to a tropical storm, meteorological agencies said.
However it could still be the most powerful July typhoon to hit Zhejiang since the Communist Party took power in 1949, the National Meteorological Centre said.
As the storm approached,
Zhejiang evacuated 1.07 million people and called its entire fishing fleet back to port, state media said. Fujian, south of Zhejiang, evacuated more than 30,000 people and Jiangsu over 46,000 people.
In the commercial capital of Shanghai, all flights out of Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport were cancelled due to the typhoon, state broadcaster CCTV said.
More than 600 flights at four airports in the affected area were cancelled.
Apart from the closure of schools and the suspension of flights and trains, more than 51,000 ships had returned to port, Xinhua said, citing local authorities.
The US government’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre forecast that after hitting China, Chan-hom would head towards the Korean peninsula, bringing gale-force winds to the west coast of South Korea.
Sixty domestic flights were cancelled in South Korea on Sunday, but international flights were not affected.
A strong wind alert has been issued along South Korea’s southern and western coastal areas, which received up to 197 millimetres of rain on Sunday morning.
Weather authorities said the typhoon would be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reaches North Korea’s Hwanghae province on Monday morning.
Earlier this week, Typhoon Linfa moved slowly up through China’s southern province of Guangdong, while a third system, Typhoon Nangka is swelling over the Pacific Ocean and is threatening Japan’s Ryukyu Islands in the coming days.
The Japan Meteorological Agency described the intensity of Nangka as “very strong”.
Typhoon Chan-hom, one of the most powerful systems to strike eastern China in decades, has disrupted air, rail and sea transport after forcing the evacuation of more than 1 million people from the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, state media Xinhua reported.
The typhoon, which landed on the coast of Zhejiang province but soon veered back to sea, brought heavy rain to Shanghai as well as to the provinces of Anhui and Fujian, beside Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
No casualties had been reported by midday Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Authorities in Zhejiang said the province may face 1.9 billion yuan ($410 million) in economic losses, with agriculture the worst affected, Xinhua said.
Typhoon Chan-hom was packing winds of 162 kilometres per hour as it hit the city of Zhoushan on Saturday, but then weakened from an earlier “super typhoon” status to a tropical storm, meteorological agencies said.
However it could still be the most powerful July typhoon to hit Zhejiang since the Communist Party took power in 1949, the National Meteorological Centre said.
As the storm approached,
Zhejiang evacuated 1.07 million people and called its entire fishing fleet back to port, state media said. Fujian, south of Zhejiang, evacuated more than 30,000 people and Jiangsu over 46,000 people.
In the commercial capital of Shanghai, all flights out of Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport were cancelled due to the typhoon, state broadcaster CCTV said.
More than 600 flights at four airports in the affected area were cancelled.
Apart from the closure of schools and the suspension of flights and trains, more than 51,000 ships had returned to port, Xinhua said, citing local authorities.
The US government’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre forecast that after hitting China, Chan-hom would head towards the Korean peninsula, bringing gale-force winds to the west coast of South Korea.
Sixty domestic flights were cancelled in South Korea on Sunday, but international flights were not affected.
A strong wind alert has been issued along South Korea’s southern and western coastal areas, which received up to 197 millimetres of rain on Sunday morning.
Weather authorities said the typhoon would be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reaches North Korea’s Hwanghae province on Monday morning.
Earlier this week, Typhoon Linfa moved slowly up through China’s southern province of Guangdong, while a third system, Typhoon Nangka is swelling over the Pacific Ocean and is threatening Japan’s Ryukyu Islands in the coming days.
The Japan Meteorological Agency described the intensity of Nangka as “very strong”.
