Typhoon Bebinca hits Shanghai, strongest storm since 1949

Shanghai’s 25 million people advised to stay at home as Bebinca pounds city with heavy rain and strong winds.

Typhoon Bebinca has made landfall in Shanghai, the strongest storm to hit China’s biggest city since 1949.

The typhoon hit at about 7.30am (23:30 GMT) on Monday in the coastal area of Lingang New City in Shanghai’s east, the China Meteorological Administration said.

With wind speeds of up to 151 kilometres per hour (94 miles per hour) near its eye, Bebinca is the strongest storm to hit the city since Typhoon Gloria in 1949, the state-run Global Times reported.

Flights and train services were cancelled, highways closed and Shanghai’s 25 million residents advised to stay at home ahead of the storm’s arrival. A 40km/h (25mph) speed limit was imposed on roads inside the city.

A red alert was in place and some 9,000 people evacuated from the Chongming District, an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, city authorities said.

Local authorities ordered all vessels to return to port to avoid heavy seas.

Fishing boats take shelter from Bebinca in the port in Zhoushan [AFP]

CCTV broadcast footage of a reporter by the coast in the neighbouring Zhejiang province, where waves pounded the craggy coastline under leaden skies.

“If I step out into [the storm], I can barely speak,” the reporter said.

“You can see that the surface of the sea is just wave after wave, each higher than the last.”

It is rare for Shanghai to get a direct hit from strong typhoons, which generally make landfall further south in China. Yagi, a destructive Category 4 storm, struck southern Hainan province last week and caused devastation in Vietnam.