Shanghai yesterday relocated more than 280,000 people, halted hundreds of flights and ferry services, and imposed speed limits on roads and railways, as a tropical storm whipped eastern China with gales and heavy rain.
Tropical Storm Co-May’s landfall in the port city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province early yesterday was soon followed by warnings of a tsunami set off by a powerful earthquake off Russia’s far east, raising concerns of larger-than-expected storm surges along the Chinese coast.
While the winds from Co-May were weaker than those generated by typhoons, the Chinese financial hub and other cities in the Yangtze River delta have taken no chances.
Photo: Reuters
At least 640 flights could be canceled at Shanghai’s two main airports, including 410 at Pudong and 230 at Hongqiao, authorities said.
All ferry services in Shanghai had been canceled since yesterday morning, and drivers were told to drive under 60kph on highways, local media reported.
Flights were also canceled or diverted at airports at nearby cities Ningbo, Wenzhou and Hangzhou. As of yesterday morning, more than 75 percent of yesterday’s flights at Zhoushan had been canceled.
Some train services in the region were temporarily suspended with others operated under restricted speeds, state media said.
Shanghai is rarely subject to direct hits from strong typhoons that generally make landfall further south in China. The most significant typhoon in the past few years that landed directly in Shanghai was Bebinca last year, the most powerful tropical cyclone to hit China’s financial capital since 1949.
Co-May made landfall in Zhoushan early yesterday with maximum sustained wind speeds near its center of 83kph. Forecasters expect Co-May to make another landfall closer to Shanghai later in the day.
The storm coincided with a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula yesterday, about 4,000km from Shanghai.
The Chinese National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center said the tsunami was expected to have a “disastrous impact” on some parts of China’s coast, including Shanghai and Zhoushan.
The center also issued tsunami warnings for the two cities, which could be hit by waves of up to 1m in height in the early evening.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS