Chinese authorities evacuated more than one million people from their homes in eastern China, including the financial capital Shanghai, as Typhoon Delfin made landfall. The storm caused heavy rainfall and transport disruptions across the region, with around one thousand flights cancelled in Shanghai alone on Monday.
Although authorities downgraded Delfin to a tropical storm, they warned of heavy rainfall, severe flooding and landslide risks until Wednesday as the storm moves northward. Meteorological authorities said maximum wind speeds reached 150 kilometres per hour when it first hit the city of Yuhuan in Zhejiang Province on Sunday at 17:30 local time, then made landfall a second time in the city of Wenzhou around an hour later.
Local authorities urged residents to avoid outdoor activities, while many major tourist destinations remained closed, including parts of Disneyland and Legoland, as well as various observation platforms along the Bund area in Shanghai. Footage broadcast by official media showed ground-floor shops submerged in water in Shanghai's former French Concession, a famous tourist area, with people wading through floodwaters that sometimes reached above ankle height.
Some official media reported the disappearance of a nine-year-old boy from the city of Wenling in Zhejiang Province after floodwaters swept him out to sea. Chinese authorities have not yet announced any deaths. Meteorologists estimate that between 250 and 500 millimetres of heavy rainfall will fall in parts of Zhejiang Province over the coming days.
In the neighbouring maritime province of Fujian, maritime authorities suspended dozens of passenger ferry routes and halted more than 100 marine construction projects. China's national television network CCTV reported that the storm had travelled six thousand kilometres before making landfall, showing its lifespan exceeded three times the average lifespan of a typical tropical typhoon. Chinese television added that the storm was also marked by its broad rotation range and its significant capacity to cause heavy rainfall.
Misleading information about the storm spread rapidly on China's internet, with official media reporting that two people were detained for publishing such information. A 60-year-old man created a fake video using artificial intelligence claiming that someone in Shanghai had fallen from a building during the storm. A 32-year-old man edited a storm video clip published by another user on social media in a way deemed misleading.
Typhoon Delfin previously brought heavy rainfall to the Philippines, parts of northern Taiwan, and Japan's Okinawa island. The Philippines' Office of Civil Defence reported eight deaths from heavy seasonal rainfall triggered by Typhoon Delfin and storms recently hitting the country, with more than 7,000 people staying in shelter centres across the nation. In Okinawa, Japan, five elderly people sustained minor injuries, according to the prefectural government, with three of them injured from strong winds.
