Typhoon pounds China with heavy rains; 1.1 million evacuated

Authorities in China evacuated more than a million people as the typhoon swiped the eastern coast on Saturday, paralysing transport links and devastating farmland, although no casualties were reported, the Chinese government and state media said.

Typhoon warnings have been distributed across nearly all coastal cities in east China as Typhoon Chan-hom is affecting areas all between Shanghai, Fujian province, and Taiwan. The provincial flood control bureau said 28,764 ships had been ordered back to port by late July 10.

Shanghai had issued the second most serious typhoon alert, but had so far ruled out a direct hit on the city of 23 million. To prepare for typhoon Chan-hom, we activated our contingency plan according to the forecast and opened pumping stations to reduce water levels, including the newly built Hongkou Harbor station.

APPHOTO XMAS803: A strong wave breaks over a vehicle along the shore ahead of the landfall of Typhoon Chan-Hom in Wenling in eastern China’s Zhejiang province Friday July 10, 2015.

More than 59 flight services linking the capital with Yeosu on the southern coast and Jeju had been canceled as of 7:30 a.m. due to strong winds.

At 1am GMT on Saturday, the typhoon was around 115 kilometres southeast of Zhejiang province over the East China Sea packing winds of up to 187 km per hour, the NMC said.

Approximately 1 million people were evacuated as a precaution in Zhejiang and another 46,000 in the neighboring province of Jiangsu, according to local emergency management services, which reported no lives lost in the typhoon.

“A storm of this magnitude is sure to pile up a large storm surge, particularly since Chan-hom is a very large typhoon with tropical-storm force winds that extended outwards up to 310 miles from the center”. More than 400 millimetres of rain fell in parts of the region.

Typhoon Nangka, a much stronger storm, will post a threat to Japan in a couple of days.