Typhoon Dolphin continued losing strength today as it moved inland over China, but authorities maintained the alert due to forecasts of heavy rainfall across large areas of the country.
At 5:00 am today (10:00 pm Monday in Lisbon), China’s National Meteorological Center located the center of Dolphin, now already classified as a tropical storm, over the city of Anqing (east), with maximum sustained winds of 20 meters per second. The agency forecasts the system will move west-northwest at a speed of 15 to 20 kilometers per hour and continue weakening, though it maintained the orange alert, the second-highest level, for heavy rain.
Today and Wednesday, authorities forecast heavy to torrential rain across large parts of eastern, central and northern China, with particularly intense showers in provinces such as Henan (central), where some areas could accumulate between 250 and 300 millimeters. The Meteorological Center also warned of the possibility of strong winds, hail and, in some areas, tornadoes.
In eastern China, air traffic conditions showed some improvement today, though cancellations persisted. Around 8:00 am (1:00 am in Lisbon), Shanghai Pudong Airport was operating at 71% capacity, with 94 flights cancelled, while Hongqiao Airport, also in China’s financial capital, recorded 88% capacity and 44 cancellations. Despite some cancellations, Nanjing, Wenzhou, Ningbo and Hangzhou also recorded normal traffic.
Read more about this topic: More than a million people evacuated in China as Typhoon Dolphin made landfall. Flood warnings remain in place through Wednesday (with video)
Meanwhile, insurers based in eastern China have also launched compensation procedures for damages related to the typhoon. In Shanghai alone, 5,271 compensation claims had been received by Monday afternoon, with estimated losses of 94.8 million yuan (12.2 million euros), according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Dolphin, the thirteenth typhoon of the season according to Chinese classification, made landfall around 5:30 pm Sunday (10:30 am in Lisbon) in the city of Yuhuan, in Zhejiang.
The typhoon brought record rainfall to Shanghai, where a central weather station recorded 312.9 millimeters in 24 hours, the highest volume in more than 150 years, according to local media. According to authorities, more than 1.6 million people were evacuated from their homes for safety reasons.
Before reaching China, Dolphin crossed the Ryukyu Islands on Friday, in southern Japan, where it left at least three people slightly injured, power outages in thousands of homes, and hundreds of cancelled flights. Dolphin arrives during a summer marked in China by typhoons, torrential rains, flash floods and landslides, with dozens of deaths and preventive evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people across various provinces.
