Authorities prepared to evacuate tens of thousands of Beijing residents as tropical storm Matsa churned toward the capital after killing 13 people and causing billions of yuan (hundreds of millions of dollars) in losses in eastern China.
The city's Municipal Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters was preparing to evacuate as many as 40,000 people in the mountains north of Beijing where there was a high risk of landslides and mudflows, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported yesterday.
Thirteen people have been killed by the storm since it hit China and two people were missing, the paper said, citing China's Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Work on Beijing's estimated 6,000 construction sites was halted to prevent injuries if support structures were to collapse, the paper said.
Roofs were also being reinforced in the city's Xuanwu district, where many traditional single-story homes are packed into alleyways, it said.
It is extremely rare for Beijing to be hit by a major tropical storm. Only four typhoons have swept through the city since 1949, killing a total of 86 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Matsa slammed into the eastern province of Zhejiang on Saturday, pummeling the region with winds up to 160km per hour, flooding farmland and ruining more than 13,000 buildings.
In Zhejiang Province alone, two people were killed and damages amounted to an estimated 6.56 billion yuan (US$809 million), Xinhua said, citing the provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
More than 1.2 million people were moved out of low-lying and coastal areas ahead of the storm.
In Shanghai, three people died of electrocution due to flooding and a construction worker died when his dormitory was blown down, local reports said. One person died in Anhui, further to the north.
The storm toppled trees, ripped away billboards and street signs and flooded streets and a subway tunnel in Shanghai, whose 20 million residents were warned to stay home to avoid injury.
The city's two airports were closed for most of two days, with fewer than 20 flights arriving or departing within a 40-hour period, Xinhua reported. The airports usually handle about 1,000 flights daily.
Matsa, named after a Laotian fish, dumped torrential rains on Taiwan before moving northwest into China.
At least 811 people have been reported killed by storms since China's summer rainy season began on June 1.
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