Tens of millions of people in Shanghai and along China’s east coast are sheltering at home Monday as Typhoon Bebinca, the strongest to hit the region since 1949, passes through, prompting flight cancellations and evacuations.
Having first crossed the Philippines and Japan, Bebinca made landfall in the eastern part of the city, in Lingang New City in Pudong District, at around 7:30 a.m. and a red alert was issued.
With winds of up to 151 kilometers per hour, it is “the strongest typhoon to make landfall in Shanghai since 1949,” according to Chinese television CCTV.
All flights to Shanghai have been cancelled, highways have been closed and a speed limit of 40 kilometres per hour has been set on the city’s streets. The typhoon has led to the cancellation of 577 trains and 1,461 flights, according to CCTV.
The city has advised its 25 million residents not to leave their homes, while most businesses are closed, partly because of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a public holiday in the country. Streets where traffic is usually very heavy are deserted and a thick fog covers the city.
By mid-afternoon, the typhoon had already caused “significant damage across the city,” with more than 1,800 trees downed and 30,000 homes without power, according to the city’s news service.
In total, 414,000 Shanghai residents have been evacuated, the same source said, and tens of thousands of emergency personnel are ready to be deployed if necessary. On a waterlogged shopping street, rescue workers in orange jumpsuits are already working to clear debris.
In Chongming County, an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, 9,000 people were also evacuated, according to authorities.
“Very nervous”
Still, some residents are braving the elements, like Wu Yun, who says he has to sort out something at work.
“I think it’s okay, because I’ve seen a lot of typhoons in the South, and I think compared to this, Shanghai is okay,” she said, struggling to open her umbrella in the face of the strong wind.
In the former French Concession district, sidewalks are littered with branches and fallen bicycles. Delivery men try to make their way through.
A street in the city centre is completely blocked by a tree, an AFP journalist noted.
“I feel very nervous today, I keep checking the situation through the window,” said Xiong Zhuowu, a doctor living in Baoshan district, who posted a video online showing a real estate agent’s sign being blown off the roof of his residence.
According to Chinese media, Bebinca is moving northwestward and is expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces. Its intensity is rapidly weakening.
Climate change
The channel broadcast footage of a reporter on the coast of Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, where large waves were crashing into the shore. “If I go out in the storm, I can hardly speak,” the reporter said, pointing to the “increasingly large” waves.
China is the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases, which fuel global warming. But experts say climate change is causing typhoons to form closer to shore, intensify faster and stay over land longer because of climate change.
Bebinca previously passed over the Japanese island of Amami (south) during the night from Saturday to Sunday, blowing winds measured at 198 km/h, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Friday, still in the form of a tropical storm, Bebinca had hit the Philippines and caused the death of six people, killed by falling trees.
Another typhoon, Yagi, which hit Southeast Asia last weekend, killed more than 400 people, mainly in Vietnam and Burma, but also in Laos, Thailand and China, according to official figures.