Typhoon Bebinca: Shanghai hit by what China says is the most powerful storm the city has seen in seven decades

Hong Kong
CNN
—

Shanghai was paralyzed Monday by what authorities described as the most powerful typhoon to directly hit the Chinese financial hub in more than seven decades, with flights, trains and highways suspended for a public holiday.

Typhoon Bebinca made landfall around 7:30 a.m. local time in an industrial suburb southeast of the metropolis of 25 million people. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) said the typhoon was packing winds of up to 130 kilometers per hour, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic.

The China Meteorological Administration recorded winds of up to 151 km/h (94 mph) near the eye of the typhoon when it made landfall, and state media described it as the strongest storm to hit Shanghai since 1949.

The administration issued a red typhoon alert on Monday, its most serious warning, warning of strong winds, heavy rain and coastal flooding in large areas of eastern China.

The powerful storm disrupted travel plans for holidaymakers during the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, a three-day national holiday that began Sunday.

All flights at Shanghai’s two international airports have been cancelled since 8pm Sunday. The city also suspended ferry services, halted some train lines and closed ports, bridges and highways on Monday.

Many tourist destinations in the city, including Shanghai Disney Resort, were also closed Monday. Videos on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, showed Disney staff taping trash cans to park fences.

More than 414,000 people in Shanghai had been evacuated to safety by midnight Monday, with exhibition centres and school gymnasiums turned into makeshift shelters, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Similar security measures have also been adopted in neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. Across the region, more than 1,600 flights were canceled as of Monday afternoon, according to CCTV.

On Chinese social media, Shanghai residents reported power and water outages Monday morning. Many had rushed to stock up on food and supplies over the weekend.

The typhoon is expected to rapidly weaken to a tropical storm as it moves inland toward the west.

Bebinca is the second major storm to hit China this month, following deadly Super Typhoon Yagi, the world’s second-strongest tropical cyclone so far this year.

Yagi killed four people in the southern province of Hainan after making landfall on September 6 with sustained winds of up to 230 km/h (140 mph), the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, before wreaking havoc across parts of Southeast Asia.

Scientists have found that warming oceans caused by the human-caused climate crisis are causing storms to intensify more quickly.

Shanghai is not typically in the direct path of severe typhoons, which typically make landfall further south in China. Before Bebinca, the city had only been directly hit by two typhoons — in 1949 and 2022 — and a handful of severe tropical storms, according to data from the China Meteorological Administration.