Shanghai airports cancelled nearly 40% of all flights on Monday as heavy rain continued after Typhoon Dolphin made landfall in eastern China on Sunday evening and continued to move north.
According to a notice from the Shanghai government on Monday morning, there were 642 cancellations at Pudong airport and 301 at Hongqiao. Passengers were urged to check their airlines for updates.
Some trains began to recover on Monday morning, including services to Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, but four metro lines in the cities were completely halted due to heavy rain, the government said.
Shanghai's flood control headquarters warned residents to take precautions, warning that some parts of the city might see accumulated water of up to 30 centimetres. Orange and yellow rainstorm alerts, the second and third highest on a four-tier scale, were issued for multiple districts.
Many streets, including popular commercial centres, were flooded in the city on Sunday afternoon, with local media outlet The Paper reporting on some of the residents' experiences.
One 70-year-old shop owner said he had never experienced flooding like this. A city worker said the sewage system was full after the heavy rainfall and could not absorb any more water.
In Zhejiang - where the typhoon landed twice on Sunday evening, first in Yuhuan and an hour later in Leqing - Hangzhou airport fully resumed flight services by 10am, with 814 flights scheduled for Monday, the Zhejiang People's Broadcasting Station reported.
The National Meteorological Centre on Monday downgraded the typhoon alert to blue, the lowest in a four-tier system, but said the weather system was moving northwest at speeds of 15-20 kilometres per hour.
Heavy rainfall is expected in multiple regions, with up to 27cm possible in northern Hubei province in central China, it said.
Dong Lin, the centre's chief broadcaster, said that so far Typhoon Dolphin was observed to have an "unusually long lifespan", which was expected to exceed 15 days - more than three times that of an ordinary typhoon.
It has also sustained a high intensity and has massive circulation, with a diameter reaching 1,300km, he said.
As the typhoon's remnant moves north, rainstorms are expected in the next few days, according to Dong, who added that close monitoring from Thursday would determine whether it reaches the intensity of Typhoon Doksuri.
Typhoon Doksuri ravaged China in 2023, leading to 107 deaths and economic losses of 180.7 billion yuan (885 billion baht).
