Typhoon Matsa battered China's eastern coast with strong winds and heavy rain yesterday morning, killing one and forcing more than 1 million people from their homes, state media reported.
The domestic airport in the country's financial hub, Shanghai, was shut and most international departures were canceled. Debris and small floods clogged streets after downpours in the night. Reporters at the scene said the water level in some areas was waist-high.
Donning large raincoats, rescue workers were seen pushing inflatable rafts piled full of bread and other relief supplies through waterclogged streets.
PHOTO: AFP
A shed on one of Shanghai's many construction sites collapsed in the rain, killing one person and injuring two, the official Xinhua agency reported.
Matsa made landfall at Ganjiang in Zhejiang Province at 3:40am after officials there and elsewhere in Zhejiang had evacuated more than 1.24 million people.
Packing winds of 162kph, Matsa brought huge waves onto the shores. Gale-force winds also uprooted trees and knocked down some houses, local media reported.
It was last heading northwest, threatening the scenic provincial capital of Hangzhou.
Officials in Hangzhou said the storm could wreak more havoc than last year's Typhoon Rananim, which killed 164 people and caused 18 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) in damage, the China Daily said.
Residents who did not have to be evacuated stayed indoors, with few signs of cars or people on the streets. Shopowners boarded up their storefronts.
Safe harbors have been arranged for 41,000 ships, and regional authorities have been urged to lower water levels behind rain-swollen dams to try to avoid flooding.
A lot of farmland is believed to be submerged and destroyed, although final figures were not available. Local authorities have been urged to lower water levels in reservoirs to prevent floods, Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng was quoted by state media as saying.
Some coastal bus services have been suspended and Hangzhou bay residents were told to keep away from the river in case of tidal waves. Ningbo port, the country's second largest in terms of handling capacity, was closed on Friday, the newspaper added.
In Shanghai, located only about 300km north of the eye of the storm, 43,600 residents were evacuated and several streets flooded, the Shanghai Morning Post said.
All flights of Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines in Zhejiang and Shanghai were grounded, the paper said.
More than 100 Eastern Airlines flights were expected to be canceled yesterday, and several dozen from Shanghai Airlines would face the same fate, the Post said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of