Typhoon Lekima kills 44 in China as Shanghai financial hub evacuated and damage

Posted by freemexy on August 16th, 2019

he official death toll from a typhoon in eastern China has risen to 44, with 16 people still missing, as the storm continued up the coast, racking up billions of dollars in economic losses and widely disrupting travel.To get more shanghai china news, you can visit shine news official website.

State broadcaster CCTV had put the death toll at 32 on Sunday, but 12 more people have been recorded dead — including seven from Zhejiang province and five from Shandong — according to data from provincial emergency bureaus and state media.

Typhoon Lekima made landfall early on Saturday in the eastern province of Zhejiang, with winds gusting to 187 kilometres per hour.

Thousands of flights were cancelled and rail operations suspended, causing travel chaos.

In Zhejiang, many of the deaths occurred about 130km north of the coastal city of Wenzhou, where a natural dam collapsed in an area deluged with 160 millimetres of rain within three hours, causing a landslide.

Luo Yuezhen, a Zhejiang-based meteorologist told state news agency Xinhua that the typhoon was "like a horse with an extremely fierce temper".The Ministry of Emergency Management said that more than one million people had been evacuated from Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, and from the financial hub of Shanghai, due to the typhoon.

Nearly 21,000 service personnel and military officers were deployed to the region for search and rescue efforts, according to Xinhua.Lekima, China's ninth typhoon this year, is expected to make a second landing along the coastline in Shandong province, prompting more flight cancellations and the closure of some expressways.

It has already damaged more than 189,000 hectares of crops and 36,000 homes in Zhejiang, provincial authorities said, estimating the economic losses at 16.6 billion yuan (.47 billion), the state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday.

Xinhua reported that Qingdao city in Shandong issued a red alert for heavy rain on Sunday and shut all its tourist destinations to the public, adding that 127 trains and all long-distance bus services had been suspended.

Over 3,200 flights were cancelled since Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV reported, although some suspensions on high-speed railway lines were lifted on Sunday.