Rumbia blusters through Shanghai

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated and bridges across some rivers were closed as Typhoon Rumbia, the fourth to hit the Yangtze River Delta region in a month, made landfall in the early hours of Friday along Shanghai's coast.

By 3 pm on Friday, Rumbia was downgraded to a tropical storm and was located over Dangtu county, Anhui province, with winds of 83 kilometers per hour and moving westward at a speed of 23 km/h, said the Beijing-based National Meteorological Center.

No casualties had been reported in the Shanghai area by Friday afternoon. Vehicles were required to slow down on some highways and all parks remained closed through Friday. By mid-afternoon, a typhoon alert was replaced by a yellow gale alert, the second of a four-tier system.

Flights and rail service were getting back to normal in the city by late Friday, though more than 140 flights had been canceled at Pudong International Airport starting Thursday.

Shanghai meteorologists said chances are small for more tropical storms to land in Shanghai this year, though the typhoon season lasts through September and occasionally typhoons appear in October.

At around 4:05 am on Friday, Rumbia made landfall in the coastal area of Shanghai's Pudong New Area, bringing torrential rains and packing winds of up to 82.8 km/h near its eye.

More than 60,000 residents had been evacuated by 9 am on Friday, with another 4,028 fishermen required to move ashore, according to the Shanghai Office of Flood Control and Drought Relief.

Arriving on the heels of Ampil, Jongdari and Yagi, Typhoon Rumbia was the fourth to make landfall in the Shanghai area, and the third to make a direct hit on the city. Shanghai is the first Chinese city to have so many typhoon landfalls in a month since 1949, said Wu Rui, chief service officer at the Shanghai Meteorological Service.

Wu said that the subtropical ridge has moved north from southern China this year, so tropical storms that typically hit southern areas landed instead in Shanghai and in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.

"In the coming months, Shanghai is not likely to have more typhoon landfalls because of the change of ocean circulation," he said.

Ahead of Rumbia, Shanghai officials reinforced signage in the city. Three pedestrians had been killed and six others injured by a shop signboard that fell on East Nanjing Road on Aug 12. A total of 11,293 were reinforced and 12,662 dismantled, officials said.

On Friday, regional authorities dismissed a rumor that a cable on the highway bridge linking Suzhou and Nantong over the Yangtze River was damaged, saying that only one of the dampers used to mitigate vibration of the cables had come loose and needed repair.

The bridge was shut down due to typhoon conditions but resumed operation at 11:51 am on Friday with a vehicle speed limit of 60 km/h.