Typhoon Dolphin floods Shanghai, forces mass evacuations in eastern China

Typhoon Dolphin pushed more than 1 million people out of their homes in eastern China as Shanghai shut down key transport links and braced for flooding across one of the country’s most economically important corridors. The storm, the season’s 13th typhoon, brought strong winds and torrential rain as it moved into the Shanghai area, with maximum sustained winds of about 150 to 151 km/h, or 94 mph.

The China Meteorological Administration said the typhoon reached the coastal area of Lingang New City in Shanghai’s east at about 7:30 a.m. Monday. By then, Shanghai had already issued its first red rainstorm alert in 13 years, and by afternoon flooding had been reported across parts of the city as heavy rain overwhelmed streets and drainage systems.

Authorities moved quickly to reduce exposure before the worst of the weather hit. Shanghai’s two major airports cancelled more than 1,300 flights, ports were shut and ferries were halted ahead of landfall. More than 1,600 flights were cancelled in broader regional disruptions, leaving travelers and freight operators to contend with a transport network that had been deliberately scaled back to limit risk.

The Ministry of Emergency Management said more than 1 million people were evacuated in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, with more than 300,000 preemptively relocated in one account. The evacuations reflected the scale of the threat facing the eastern seaboard, where dense urban districts, river networks and low-lying coastal zones are vulnerable when tropical systems arrive with this much rain.

Dolphin had already brought heavy rain to northern Taiwan before reaching China, and forecasters warned that torrential rain could stretch through Aug. 10 across Zhejiang, Shanghai and northern Fujian. That raised the danger of flooding and landslides beyond the immediate storm track, putting pressure on local officials to keep roads, ports and airports closed while emergency crews monitored swollen waterways and flooded neighborhoods.