Flights to eastern China were disrupted on Saturday as Typhoon Dolphin approached the country’s east coast, with airlines cancelling some services and offering passengers flexible rebooking and refund options.
Get breaking news anytime, anywhere. Download the TOI app now!
The storm had earlier battered Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture, injuring six people and leaving more than 50,000 buildings without power, while Chinese authorities closed ports and suspended ferry services ahead of its expected landfall.
Most of the typhoon-related flight disruptions were reported at airports in Ningbo, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai, as cited by South China Morning Post.
China’s Zhejiang province and Shanghai are expected to fall within Typhoon Dolphin’s “dangerous semicircle”, where stronger winds and heavier rainfall are forecast, according to the National Meteorological Centre (NMC). Both regions are likely to experience torrential rain on Sunday.
As of noon on Saturday, the centre of Typhoon Dolphin was over the southern East China Sea, around 475 km (295 miles) east of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, according to the National Meteorological Centre (NMC).
The NMC retained its orange typhoon alert on Saturday morning, the second-highest level in China’s four-tier warning system.
Typhoon Dolphin is forecast to bring strong winds to the East China Sea and coastal areas including Shanghai, Zhejiang, northeastern Fujian, Jiangsu and Taiwan on Saturday, with eastern China expected to receive heavy to torrential rain over the next three days.
National departments and local authorities have activated emergency response measures to prepare for potential flooding, marine and geological disasters and other risks associated with the storm.
