| it appears you are/were in a very good area. Haikui forced nearly 270,000 people in the Philippines to flee their homes, prompting authorities to close schools, financial markets and offices. Nearly 2 million evacuated as Typhoon Haikui hits China (Reuters) - Typhoon Haikui struck China on Wednesday, packing winds of up to 110 km per hour (68 mph), prompting officials to evacuate nearly 2 million people and grounding hundreds of flights to and from Shanghai and other cities. More than 1.5 million people in the eastern province of Zhejiang and 252,000 residents of outlying parts of Shanghai were evacuated after Haikui landed early in the morning, causing flooding and stranding hundreds of people, the official Xinhua news agency reported. More than 500 domestic and international flights to and from Shanghai's two airports, Hongqiao and Pudong, have been cancelled as of 10:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), the Shanghai Airport Authority said on its microblogging account. China's top three carriers - Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines Co Ltd - have also cancelled all flights to and from Hangzhou and Ningbo, both south of Shanghai, until noon, they said. No ships had been allowed in or out of Shanghai's ports, the world's busiest by container volume, since Tuesday night, an official at the Shanghai Water Authority said. Another key port in Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, has also been shut. Some trains to and from Shanghai, the country's commercial hub, have also been cancelled. The city's financial markets remained open, however. By late evening, the center of the typhoon is expected to have moved northwest although wet and windy conditions are likely to persist, according to Tropical Risk Storm's website www.tropicalstormrisk.com/. Haikui forced nearly 270,000 people in the Philippines to flee their homes, prompting authorities to close schools, financial markets and offices. (Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Writing by Kazunori Takada; Editing by Jason Subler and Robert Birsel http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/08/us-china-storm-shanghai-idUSBRE87707620120808 Typhoon Haikui, which made landfall in Zhejiang on 08 Aug 2012, has brought heavy downpours to east China and killed three people there. In neighboring Anhui province, the typhoon has left one person dead and forced 26,000 others to be evacuated. In Zhejiang province, the typhoon has affected more than 4.03 million people and caused economic losses of more than 10 billion yuan (1.57 billion U.S. dollars), the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters said, adding that the typhoon has also destroyed 4,452 houses and damaged about 184,800 hectares of cropland. In Jiangsu province, 180,500 people have been relocated and more than 18,567 ships were ordered to return to port before the rain began. (Xinhua, 08 Aug 2012) http://reliefweb.int/disaster/tc-2012-000134-chn?sl=environment-term_listing%252Ctaxonomy_index_tid_content_format-8 |