Typhoon Bebinca was expected to make landfall along a swath of coastline including the megacity of Shanghai sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, according to Beijing’s emergency management ministry.
The ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the storm would cause “heavy to torrential” downpours with “local heavy or extremely heavy rainstorms” between Sunday and Tuesday.
Officials held a meeting Saturday to “research and deploy flood and typhoon control work in key areas”, according to the statement.
The water resources ministry on Saturday launched a level-four emergency response – the lowest in a tiered system – for flooding in Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Bebinca’s expected landfall comes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, a public holiday in China.
The emergency management ministry said officials must “pay close attention to the development of the typhoon”, adding that “many people will be travelling, mobility will be high and safety risks will be prominent”.
Shanghai municipal authorities urged residents on Sunday to “strengthen efforts to guard against harmful effects of the typhoon on high-altitude work, transportation, infrastructure and agriculture”.
Some flights to and from major airports in Shanghai were cancelled or rescheduled on Sunday because of the typhoon, state media reported.
Passenger shipping lines were scheduled to be suspended in Shanghai from Sunday due to the typhoon, according to an official statement on the social media account of the municipal port and shipping development centre.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say are driving climate change and making extreme weather more frequent and intense.
