Torrential rain and storms in Typhoon Dolphin’s wake inundated several provinces in China’s east, drenching the coastal region and flooding streets in Shanghai, where around 40% of flights were grounded on Monday due to the weather.
Dolphin packed maximum sustained winds of 151 km/h near its centre when it made landfall in Zhejiang, the province to the south and west of Shanghai, on Sunday evening before weakening to a tropical storm.
Its remaining rain clouds continued to soak the eastern provinces including Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong on Monday.
Many streets in Shanghai, the country’s second most populated city, were flooded, including in the main commercial centres.
The city’s two airports cancelled a total of 943 flights due to the typhoon, reducing capacity by nearly 40%, state broadcaster CCTV said.
China Eastern Airlines said on Monday it was trying to resume flights to Shanghai, Zhejiang and other destinations in an “orderly manner.”
Many streets in Shanghai’s suburban Jiading and Qingpu districts around the city centre remained waterlogged, according to live-streams shared by residents on social media. The live videos, not verified by Reuters, showed people wading through knee-high murky water.
“It rained almost all night last night. When I woke up this morning, I found the neighbourhood flooded, and the streets were severely flooded,” said 39-year-old Hou Lina, who works in sales in Jiading in Shanghai.
“I’ve lived in Shanghai for 10 years, and this is the first time I’ve experienced such inconvenience from a typhoon. This is the first time I’ve encountered such widespread flooding,” she told Reuters.
In Shanghai’s Jinshan, the district authority said non-essential businesses and organisations could temporarily halt operations, classes, outdoor events and transit services, amid forecasts of continued strong winds and heavy rain on Monday.
Powerful winds and lashing rain flipped over a truck in Zhejiang’s Wenzhou, a video posted on TikTok on Sunday showed. It was not clear what happened to the driver.
The strongest typhoon to hit China this year, Dolphin is forecast to move deeper inland to the central provinces of Hubei and Henan in the coming days while also pushing moisture north.
Authorities in the capital Beijing raised warnings for torrential rain and said the city was prepared to activate its flood control response on Tuesday morning.
Beijing is expected to experience “significant rainfall” from Tuesday until Thursday, with authorities warning of the risk of flash floods in the city and landslides in the surrounding mountainous areas.
The typhoon had already travelled 6,000 km (3,728 miles) before it made landfall, giving it a life-cycle three times longer than an ordinary typhoon, and bringing with it an ultra-large cloud system that enveloped China’s east, CCTV said in another report.
Dolphin’s impact was also being compared to Doksuri in 2022. That typhoon crossed the country after causing destruction in southeastern Fujian province, unleashing record-breaking rainfall in Beijing.
As the storm clouds meet colder air in the north, Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei will need to brace for rains into Thursday, CCTV said.
