Buildings flattened by the typhoon at a construction site in Wenling City, in Zhejiang province. Photo: AFP
AUGUST 10th 2019
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily
Typhoons in China Cause Power Outages, Transport Delays, and 18 Deaths
As a result of a landslide caused by a major typhoon on Saturday, 18 people were killed and 14 had gone missing in Eastern China. The typhoon had come unexpected for many, and according to state broadcaster CCTV reports, had triggered the necessary evacuation of more than one million people/residents, as well as several widespread transport disruptions.
Early on Saturday, the Typhoon (named Typhoon Lekima) made landfall in the Eastern province of Zhejiang with a speed 187km per hour in terms of maximum winds. The storm reportedly could have been worse – and had even weakened, according to the official Xinhua news agency, having dropped from its earlier, more concerning designation as a “super typhoon”, which are known to be far more dangerous.
According to the country’s aviation regulator, In Eastern China, thousands of flights were decidedly cancelled as a result of the heavy winds and rainfalls, with the majority of flights going into and out of Shanghai’s two major airports had been forced to cancel on Saturday afternoon, as could also be seen in accordance to their websites.
An orange alert had been issued on Saturday, by China’s weather bureau. An orange alert is the second highest form of warning, after a red alert which had also in fact been posed on Friday when the storm had worsened and forced the cancellation of flights in Taiwan, further hindering the populous by forcing many to temporarily close down their markets and businesses on the island.
About 130km North of the coastal city of Wenzhou, a deadly landslide had occurred as a cause of the weather, when a nearby natural dam had suffered damage and collapsed in an area that had been deluged with 160 millimetres of rain within three hours, as reported by CCTV.
The storm was moving Northward at a speed of around 15kph, progressively weakening as it travelled along, Xinhua reported, having been citing the weather bureau. The financial hub of Shanghai had been battered by fierce, high winds and heavy rainfall on Saturday afternoon, and the country’s Shanghai Disneyland had to see a shutdown for the day.
Throughout the city of Jinan, in the Shandong province, nearly 200 trains had been delayed or suspended entirely up until Monday, Xinhua reported. More than 250,000 residents in Shanghai and 800,000 residents in Zhejiang province had been forced to evacuate due to the typhoon and the danger it presented. Too top off the disaster, as reported by state media, some 2.72 million households in Zhejiang had suffered power blackouts as the storm’s winds and rain caused a downing in the electrical transmission lines.
Around 200 houses in six cities in Zhejiang had suffered collapse as the winds and rain brought them down, and 66,300 hectares of farmland had been completely destroyed, CCTV said. It was predicted that the storm was going to reach Jiangsu province by the early hours of Sunday, before veering over towards the Yellow Sea, and from there continuing North until it would be making landfall once again in the Shandong province.
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily
