Shanghai’s two main airports canceled more than 900 flights on Monday as Tropical Storm Dolphin brought heavy rain and flooding to eastern China after making landfall as a typhoon a day earlier.
Shanghai’s Hongqiao and Pudong airports scrapped about 40% of expected services, following the cancellation of about 1,300 flights the previous day, the Shanghai Airport Group said. The storm also disrupted urban transport, with Shanghai suspending some metro lines on Monday.
Rail services were also hit, with China Railway Chengdu Group suspending 115 trains, reported. Authorities warned of risks of severe flooding and landslides in some areas as the storm system moved inland.
CCTV reported that authorities in Yueqing, a city in Zhejiang province, were searching for people trapped in flooded homes. The China Meteorological Administration said Dolphin was moving northwest at 15 to 20 kilometers per hour (9 to 12 mph) and was expected to continue weakening.
The storm made landfall on Sunday evening in Taizhou in Zhejiang province with winds of 151 kph (93 mph), after bringing heavy rain to northern Taiwan over the weekend. Before landfall, Dolphin had forced at least 760,000 people to relocate preemptively, including more than 390,000 in Taizhou.
Authorities in Shanghai and Fujian Province evacuated more than 210,000 and 160,000 people, respectively, from high-risk areas. In Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, officials temporarily closed the scenic spots around the iconic West Lake, along with temples, parks and museums, and said they would reopen on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in the region, Tropical Storm Chan-hom was moving toward Japan’s Pacific coast. The Japan Meteorological Agency said the storm had winds of 83 kph (51 mph) on Monday morning and was forecast to strengthen slightly before landfall from Tuesday into Wednesday.
Dolphin did not directly hit the Philippines, but it intensified seasonal monsoon rains that triggered flooding and landslides across Luzon, the country’s main northern island region. In the northern mountain resort city of Baguio, a landslide buried three houses on Sunday night, killing 10 people whose bodies were recovered over two days of rescue efforts.
Three people were rescued with injuries and taken to a hospital, Baguio officials said. The government’s Office of Civil Defense said the mudslide raised the death toll from nearly a week of torrential rains, floods and a tropical storm in northern Luzon to 19, while more than a million people were affected, including about 98,000 displaced from their homes.
