Over a million people evacuated as typhoon hits eastern China

BEIJING — A typhoon swept along the coast of eastern China over the weekend, whipping up high waves, intense winds and rain that forced the crowded commercial region to suspend flights and evacuate more than a million residents.

Typhoon Chan-hom struck Zhejiang province on Saturday afternoon after ploughing past Japan’s Okinawa islands and Taiwan.

The typhoon made landfall near Zhoushan, a city of 1.1 million people in Zhejiang, with wind speeds as high as 165km per hour.

“So far, no casualties have been reported,” Xinhua, the state news agency, reported after the typhoon struck. “A number of villages were flooded, and power and road access have been cut off.”

Photos on a Zhoushan city news website showed a large billboard buckled by the winds, as well as flooded roads, uprooted trees and residents protecting buildings with sandbags.

More than 710,000 people and 81,460ha of farmland have been affected, said the Zhejiang provincial flood-control and drought-prevention headquarters.

About 94 houses collapsed and 11,224 enterprises were closed because of flooding. Direct economic losses were estimated at 1.947 billion yuan (S$424 million), said the headquarters.

The agricultural sector was the worst-hit with economic losses of 1.44 billion yuan, it added.

Officials warned residents on Friday to prepare for a super typhoon. Almost 29,000 boats were ordered to return to port.

Airports in Hangzhou and other cities cancelled more than 600 flights. Hundreds of international flights from Shanghai were also delayed or cancelled, said the China News Service.

China Southern Airlines and Air China, the country’s two major carriers, cancelled 339 and 144 flights respectively in east China on Saturday.

Singapore Airlines cancelled eight flights plying the Singapore-Shanghai route on Saturday. However, flights were able to continue yesterday following a delay of several hours after the worst of the typhoon moved away from the eastern seaboard.

Several high-speed trains starting from or arriving at the cities of Hangzhou and Ningbo were also cancelled on Saturday.

In neighbouring Jiangsu province, more than 46,000 people were evacuated. Many flights out of Nantong and Nanjing were cancelled.

By yesterday afternoon, the typhoon was waning as it moved northeast towards the Korean peninsula. Dozens of domestic flights in South Korea were grounded yesterday.

AGENCIES