Typhoon weakens but traffic chaos lingers

Typhoon Fitow continued to weaken as it moved westward across the mainland on Monday, after packing winds of more than 200 kilometers an hour, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate and paralyzing transportation services.

The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical depression with its center located in Jian'ou, Fujian province, at about 9 am on Monday, moving southwest at a speed of 20 km per hour.

By 11 am on Monday, the storm, named after a flower from Micronesia, was so weak that it was impossible for meteorologists to track its center.