Lekima batters coastal regions as death toll rises
At 2 pm on Sunday, nearly all the residents and business owners on a street in Linhai, Zhejiang province, were busy with the same task.
They were cleaning up their homes and shops on Ziyang Old Street after a frightening night of heavy winds, rain and flooding caused by Typhoon Lekima.
Some people pulled their wooden beds, complete with sodden mattresses, into the street to dry in the afternoon sun, while others were busy tending to their walls or wooden floors.
The owner of a noodle shop on the street said, “We
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made some preparations before the typhoon made landfall, such as moving the refrigerator and other electrical appliances to higher places, but we never expected the amount of rainfall it brought.”
Linhai is about a four-hour drive from Shanghai, and Ziyang Old Street has long been known for its cobblestone sidewalks that wind their way past two-story buildings from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and homes decorated with stone carvings and gray tiles.
The street is a must-visit attraction for tourists to the old part of Linhai, which sits near the Lingjiang River.
On Saturday night, residents battled floods that breached the 1,500-year-old city wall and rose to a height of 1.5 meters.
The flooding was so severe that police and rescue authorities issued an online emergency appeal for boats to be used to evacuate those affected.
Lekima, the ninth and strongest typhoon to date in China this year, had left at least 48 people dead as of 5 pm on Monday, wreaking havoc with torrential rains, floods and strong winds in East China. Millions were displaced.
Typhoon Lekima made initial landfall at around 1:45 am Saturday in Wenling, Zhejiang province, and then made a second landfall in Qingdao, Shandong province, at 8:50 pm on Sunday.
The typhoon had weakened and was forecast to linger in coastal parts of the Shandong Peninsula on Tuesday before moving northeast toward Liaoning and Jilin provinces and then likely die down on Wednesday, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
Yang Qingguo, deputy director of Liaoning’s flood control and drought relief headquarters, said catastrophic floods might occur along major rivers in the province.
Krosa, the 10th typhoon this year, is expected to affect parts of Northeast China on Thursday and Friday and bring more rainfall, according to China Weather, a website run by the administration.
Lekima had battered eastern areas of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong and Anhui since Saturday, forcing millions to relocate and causing billions of yuan in economic losses.
Four people were killed in Anhui, China News Service reported.
According to Shandong’s emergency management department, five people were killed and seven missing after the typhoon hit 522 towns in 14 cities in the province, affecting 1.66 million people.
By Monday, 183,800 had been relocated to safer areas.
The typhoon also damaged 175,400 hectares of crops and collapsed 609 homes, causing direct economic losses of 1.5 billion yuan ($212 million), according to provincial authorities.
Rescue and relief efforts were underway as Lekima moved away from the province, officials said.
Shouguang, dubbed China’s vegetable town, was hit by the strongest rainfall since the city began recording meteorological data in 1959.
A total of 18,000 greenhouses were flooded, according to the local flood control headquarters.
Lekima inundated the crop planted by farmer Wang Baihai.
“I have five mu (0.33 hectares) of scallions in land near a riverbank, and they were about to be harvested and sold,” he told Beijing News, adding his losses will be over 10,000 yuan.
Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces also witnessed severe casualties and economic losses. The search for the missing is ongoing.
At least 39 people were killed and nine were still missing in Zhejiang as of press time on Monday, according to local authorities.
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