China Braces for Typhoon Gaemi After Devastation in Taiwan and the Philippines
Typhoon Gaemi churned over southeastern China on Friday, with the local authorities warning that the storm, which left a trail of destruction in Taiwan and the Philippines, would bring torrential rain and flooding.
Gaemi made landfall on Thursday night in China’s Fujian Province, where the local government shut down schools and nonessential businesses and evacuated more than 290,000 people by Friday morning. The international airport in Fujian’s Quanzhou prefecture canceled more than 160 flights because of the weather.
The storm had reported wind speeds of around 73 miles an hour when it made landfall, according to the Fujian Meteorological Bureau, just shy of what would be a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. Its intensity was lower than on Wednesday when it slammed into Taiwan with wind speeds equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.
The Chinese authorities urged caution despite the weakening of the storm, which is forecast to head north in the coming days, crossing more than a dozen provinces. There has been heavy rain and deadly flooding for weeks in Southern China.
The country’s leader, Xi Jinping, held a meeting on Thursday with China’s top decision-making body to coordinate flood prevention and disaster relief efforts, state media said.
And as of early Friday morning, some weather stations in Fujian reported more than 1.6 feet of rainfall since Wednesday. Forecasters said that other parts of the country could see as much as 2.6 feet of rain.
In Taiwan, the toll from Gaemi as of Friday afternoon was seven people dead, one missing and 785 injured. Some parts in the central and southern parts of the island remained flooded on Friday morning. The heavy rainfall also set off landslides, which blocked railroads as well as the main highway that connects the capital, Taipei, to the eastern coast.
There were rough seas in the region this week as the storm passed through.
On Thursday, a Tanzanian cargo ship sank near Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, and a tanker carrying fuel oil sank off the coast of the Philippines.
Gaemi had killed at least 15 people in the Philippines as of Thursday, according to officials. The Philippine authorities said Friday that Gaemi had intensified monsoon rains in some parts of the country, raising the threat of flooding and landslides.
Zixu Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
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