Typhoon Prapiroon Brushes Past Shanghai, Fades

Typhoon Prapiroon brushed past Shanghai early on Thursday, injuring at least one person and causing flooding and damaging homes before it faded and headed back out to sea, officials and state media said.

Thousands of people were evacuated from low-lying areas overnight and more than 100 flights at Shanghai's two airports were delayed or cancelled.

Shanghai Television reported one worker was injured when a shack near a construction site was damaged by strong winds and heavy rains.

The typhoon came as close as 100 km (60 miles) to the city of 13 million at about 1 a.m. (1700 GMT), but soon lost strength and moved north, said an official at Shanghai Flood Control Headquarters.

"At 5 a.m., urgent warnings on the typhoon were downgraded to warnings," the official said. "We have yet to calculate damage."

State media said floodwaters had breached dykes along the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek running across Shanghai.

Water levels in Suzhou Creek reached the second highest levels in history, they said.

Troops spent around three hours piling up sandbags to repair a breach in a dyke in the northern district of Baoshan, state television said.

An official at Shanghai's Pudong Airport said some 100 flights had been cancelled or delayed between 4 p.m. and midnight (0800 to 1600 GMT).

The airport was still busy handling delayed passengers on Thursday morning, the official said.

"Flights have not returned to normal yet," she said.

Shanghai's other airport, Hongqiao, suffered less from the winds as it is inland near the city centre. But some flights were delayed, mainly because the airport had to bear the burden of many flights shifted from Pudong, official said.

"There was traffic congestion due to additional flights, though the airport was operating normally," an official said.

On the city's island county of Chongming, more than 1,200 people were evacuated as floods broke through a dyke, Shanghai Television said.

The official Wenhui Daily said more than 3,000 people had been evacuated from coastal areas on the island as the typhoon approached.

State media said the typhoon also brushed by the eastern province of Zhejiang and heavy rains and choppy seas forced the evacuation of islands off Zhejiang on Wednesday night.

The typhoon hit the province's Zhoushan archipelago as it blew its way northwest, the media said.

The provincial government had suspended air and shipping services at cities on the islands and in coastal areas and more than 3,200 households had been evacuated, media said. There were no reports of casualties or damage estimates.





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