Key Highlights:
- Two international airports in Shanghai have canceled all flights and officials have banned outdoor activities.
- The typhoon was traveling at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour.
- Shanghai’s administration said it would delay metro trains and suspend several lines.
Ensuring safety
As Typhoon In-Fa battered eastern China with fierce gusts and heavy rains, two international airports in Shanghai have canceled all flights and officials have banned outdoor activities. The storm arrived while central China was already reeling from record flooding that killed at least 63 people. The storm also knocked out power, and forced more than one million people to flee their homes.
During an inspection of preparations, Yuan Jiajun, Zhejiang province Communist Party secretary, said, “We will make every effort to ensure the safety of people’s lives and property, and do everything we can to minimize disaster losses, and strive to achieve the goal of no deaths, few injuries, and economic losses.”
Dozens Killed
“The difficulty with this typhoon is not just that it is inflicting economic havoc in some crucial sections of China, but it also arrives at a very delicate time,” said Melinda Liu, Beijing bureau head for Newsweek.
“It, first of all, comes just a few days after massive flooding in central China which has disrupted lives of a million people and killed dozens. Not just killed people but also created images that went viral on social media, some very graphic pictures of people who apparently drowned in a subway system,” she said.
“However, there is a political relevance to it, and the point of that will most likely be played out in the following months. There is a possibility that if the handling of the preparedness is not up to par, then the government might be blamed.”
The storm was expected to make a second landfall on the coast between Zhejiang’s Jiaxing city and Jiangsu province’s Qidong city. This is after flooding 6km (4 miles) of roads in Zhoushan with seawater and falling approximately 1,000 trees in Shanghai.
In-Fa Typhoon reaction
The typhoon was traveling at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour, according to the Meteorological Administration (9 miles per hour). The Meteorological Administration reported wind gusts of high to 38 meters per second in In-fa. According to Reuters calculations, this equates to around 137 kph (85 mph).
The Zhejiang emergency management department raised its typhoon reaction halting schools and shops and restricting transportation as needed. Shanghai, which has a population of roughly 26 million people, and Hangzhou, which is located to the south, both canceled inbound and outgoing flights. Shanghai and Hangzhou’s administration said it would delay metro trains and suspend several lines.
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