16 hours ago
Tropical storm disrupts travel, courts and schools
Stormy setback: People using umbrellas and raincoats to protect themselves from the rain in Hong Kong, after Podul weakened to a severe tropical storm. — AFP
TROPICAL storm Podul dumped torrential rain on southern China, still reeling from record downpours last week, and disrupted hospitals, schools and law courts in Hong Kong after tearing through Taiwan and leaving 143 people injured.
The hearing of Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai was cancelled yesterday after authorities put in place their highest-level 'black' rainstorm warning.
Outpatient clinics also shut until evening, and schools closed for the day.
Airports across the region reported cancellation rates for the morning of around 20%, according to data from Flightmaster, as Podul pelted parts of Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces with more than 70mm of rain an hour.
Over a third of flights to Quanzhou – a key textile, footwear and apparel export hub – were cancelled, with analysts warning that extreme weather events increasingly pose a threat to growth in the world's second-largest economy.
China has been battling with record rainfall in its north and south as well as prolonged heatwaves in its interior.
Yesterday, the government announced 430 million yuan (RM252mil) in fresh funding for disaster relief, taking the total allocated since April to at least 5.8 billion yuan (RM3.4bil).
Podul made landfall on the coast of China's southeastern province of Fujian, having weakened from a typhoon to a tropical storm after lashing Taiwan on Wednesday, where winds of up to 191kph left one person missing and scores injured.
But its residual vortex stands to wreak havoc in southern China, still reeling from the heaviest rains in generations last week, as it moves northwest at a speed of 30-35kph.
Hong Kong saw its heaviest August rainfall since 1884 last week while in Guangdong, 75,000 people were evacuated as 622.6mm of rain fell on the provincial capital Guangzhou between Aug 2 and 6 – nearly three times the city's August average – leaving at least seven dead.
'Authorities need to be extra ready,' said Chim Lee, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. 'There's growing evidence that we're seeing more intense and slower-moving tropical cyclones.
'China's southern coast is set for economic disruptions of all kinds. Most institutions in the region are fairly well prepared, but there also seems to be a subtle northward shift in where cyclones reach their peak intensity – these places need to keep a sharper eye out.'
Over one million cubic meters of water, the equivalent of 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools, was discharged from a reservoir in eastern Guangdong on Wednesday to free up space in anticipation of further heavy rain, state media reported.
Authorities in Guangdong's Meizhou closed all the highways yesterday morning due to the downpour, and the high-speed railway linking the high-tech hubs of Shenzhen and Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province was suspended. — Reuters
