BEIJING (Reuters) – China coped with floods in the north from a weakening Typhoon Doksuri on Sunday, with expected record rains in Beijing, while people in the south mopped up, even as another storm loomed off the coast.
China’s National Meteorological Center kept its red alert, the country’s highest, for rainstorms on Sunday, state media Xinhua reported.
Doksuri, one of the strongest storms to hit China in years, had prompted thousands to evacuate in southern province Fujian and ripping coastal areas and pushing north and inland. It had pummelled the Philippines and Taiwan before hitting China on Friday.
Although the authorities downgraded the storm from typhoon on Sunday, the China Meteorological Bureau maintained a red alert for heavy rain in various provinces, especially northern areas such as Hebei, Beijing, Shanxi and Henan.
The capital was likely to receive record rainfall, while cities in Hebei province, which encircles Beijing, were waterlogged, local media reported. In Hebei, 209 weather stations recorded extremely heavy rainfall and 1,283 heavy rainfall，local TV reported.
Doksuri had affected 1.46 million people in Fujian, with more than 363,000 resettled, causing over 3.1 billion yuan ($430 million) in direct economic losses, as of Saturday night, state media said.
In Doksuri’s wake, social media posts showed emergency workers clearing fallen trees and landslides, and people wading in thigh-high flood waters.
Forecasters warned of the approach of Tropical Storm Khanun, expected to rapidly gain typhoon strength and strike China’s densely populated coast in Zhejiang province, between Shanghai and Fujian, this week.
($1 = 7.1488 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Ningwei Qin and Kevin Yao; Editing by William Mallard)
