At least two people died Wednesday in a typhoon that quieted business activity in the Chinese commercial center of Shanghai as it dumped heavy amounts of rain in high winds.
Typhoon Haikui led to the cancellation of more than 700 flights on Wednesday, while thousands of ships were moored as the storm was felt throughout China's crowded Yangtze Delta region around Shanghai, a region of around 100 million that represents more than a third of the country's economic output.
The storm made landfall early Wednesday in the manufacturing province of Zhejiang, where Xinhua news agency estimated its economic losses around $1.6 billion.
Shanghai authorities listed a woman hit by flying glass as the city's first casualty of what appeared to be the most disruptive storm to hit the city in about seven years. A collapsed dormitory killed a Shanghai man, while seven serious injuries were also reported.
For many in the city of 23 million, Haikui's windblown rains were a nuisance. The storm caused minor flooding, delayed travel and left residents soaked. Warned of Haiku's approach, some businesses didn't open and many more let workers go home around noon after the local weather bureau raised its typhoon alert to its highest level, red. Storm warnings were dropped around dawn Thursday, as officials said the system was weakening.
Haikui could be felt through Friday as it slowly heads west from Shanghai, according to a China Meteorological Administration statement.
Serious damage appeared limited, and commercial activity continued. The all-electronic Shanghai Stock Exchange traded a normal but subdued session. Key indexes rose a minuscule amount ahead of economic data due Thursday that could provide investors a better sense of the seriousness of China's economic slowdown.
Haikui was felt strongest in Zhejiang coastal cities, where it landed with winds of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) an hour between Wenzhou and Ningbo before turning north toward Shanghai and cities like Suzhou. More than 1.5 million people were evacuated along the storm path, including about 374,000 from a low-lying rural eastern edge of Shanghai, authorities told Xinhua news agency.
Airlines canceled 708 flights in a 24-hour period at Shanghai's two major airports, according to the bureau that administers them, while carriers also suspended service at other regional airports, including Hangzhou. The world's busiest container-handling port in Shanghai had interrupted operation starting late Tuesday, as authorities ordered ships to harbor ahead of the storm. The storm prompted closure of subways and high-speed trains.
Banks stayed opened in Shanghai's Liujiazui financial district, though thick, erratic downpours reduced visibility to almost zero on Wednesday afternoon. Rainwater lapped over curbs, turning shopping malls and skyscrapers into islands.Umbrellas offered little protection from the wet, gale force winds.
Weeks after bad drainage was blamed for killing 77 in the nation's capital of Beijing, authorities in Shanghai stressed in comments to local media that they would combat flooding. For residents living at street level, some were setting sand bags at their door stoops.On one street in Shanghai's former French Concession, more than a dozen police and firefighters were using their hands to scoop leafs and other debris from drains in an effort to lower ankle-high water that pooled over several blocks.Elsewhere in Shanghai, the dirty work was being done by an army of migrant workers like Zhou Dali, a grizzled street sweeper. Soaked in a filthy orange jumper on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Zhou said he had been grabbing detritus from a single drain near a Pudong highway entrance for almost 12 hours. He pointed to a pile of leaves he already collected and shouted above the wind, 'They just keep going in.'
James T. Areddy
|