SHANGHAI: Roads and neighborhoods in Shanghai flooded on Friday as a second typhoon hit the Chinese city days after it was hit by its strongest storm in 75 years. Typhoon Pulasan made landfall in the city’s Fengxian district on Thursday evening with maximum wind speeds of 23 meters per second (83 kilometers per hour), according to state news agency Xinhua.
The storm “is forecast to gradually weaken as it moves inland”, Xinhua said, although downpours continued in the city on Friday morning. Videos posted on social media on Friday showed Shanghai residents wading through calf-deep water in some neighborhoods, although no serious damage or casualties have yet been reported.
A video released by state-run Shanghai Media Group shows police officers in high-waisted coats pushing a stopped car through water in Shanghai while a poncho-wearing scooter driver tries to cross a flooded intersection. According to the video, around a dozen cars broke down in the area due to the waters.
Many of the areas that were flooded earlier in the morning had been cleared and dried by 11:00, an AFP reporter saw. Parts of Shanghai raised their typhoon warning level as the storm approached the city on Thursday. Pulasan comes days after Typhoon Bebinca wreaked havoc on Monday as the strongest storm to hit the megacity since 1949.
Bebinca felled more than 1,800 trees and left 30,000 homes without power, with authorities evacuating more than 400,000 people across Shanghai ahead of the storm. Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is making extreme weather more frequent and more intense, scientists say. China is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, although its per capita emissions pale in comparison to rival economic powerhouse the United States.
