Mainland China is on high alert as Super Typhoon Gaemi approaches its eastern coast, with the storm expected to make landfall on Thursday after slamming Taiwan and bringing devastating rain to the Philippines.
The National Meteorological Centre issued this year’s first red alert, the most severe typhoon alert, as Gaemi was upgraded to a super typhoon on Wednesday.
Packing winds of 151.2km/h (94mph) near its centre, Super Typhoon Gaemi will be the third typhoon to hit China in a year when the country has already faced severe floods and extreme rain.
The eastern coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang have prepared for the approaching typhoon by suspending air travel, ships and trains and closing outdoor scenic spots.
The Fujian Meteorological Bureau activated a Level 1 emergency response – the most serious category – for typhoons and rainstorms on Thursday.
It is expected to be the second-strongest typhoon on record in terms of potential wind and rain damage, adding pressure to the disaster prevention efforts, according to Gao Shan, Fujian’s chief meteorologist.
More than 150,000 people in Fujian have been evacuated. The provincial railway department halted all trains within Fujian on Thursday to brace for heavy rainstorms expected to accompany the typhoon.
The Ministry of Water Resources activated a Level 4 emergency response – the least severe in a four-tier response system – for flooding in Zhejiang and Fujian. The provinces are expected to be hit with precipitation ranging from torrential rain to heavy downpours, which could lead to flooding.
Super Typhoon Gaemi is projected to move further inland, bringing heavy rainfall, the China Meteorological Administration said.
From the south, it will sweep through all seven major river basins in the country, said Yin Zhijie, chief forecaster with the water resources ministry, in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV.
After making landfall on Thursday, Super Typhoon Gaemi will continue on its path, with heavy rainstorms expected to last about a week in affected areas, Minister of Water Resources Li Guoying said on Monday.
Li urged water resources authorities to spare no effort to ensure “no casualties, no dam breaches at reservoirs, no failures of critical levees, and no major impacts to critical infrastructure”.
Meanwhile, northern China continued to be pummelled by heavy rain.
In the northwestern province of Gansu, two national highways were hit by mudslides, floods, and landslides, while capital city Beijing issued a red alert for rainstorms on Wednesday, according to CCTV.
Typhoon Gaemi passed by the Philippines on Wednesday without making landfall, but the intense rain it triggered killed at least 22 people and displaced over 600,000 from their homes due to floods and landslides, according to the Associated Press.
China has deployed hi-tech methods to strengthen observation and forecasting of typhoons.
The domestic drone Haiyan-I penetrated Typhoon Prapiroon in the southern island province of Hainan on Sunday, collecting data and sending it in real time to the Tianqing meteorological cloud platform.
The drone provides a comprehensive 3D view of typhoons by deploying eight weather probes that record temperature, humidity, wind direction, wind speed and pressure data at different altitudes, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
