BEIJING, Sept 14 – Powerful winds and torrential rains battered Zhoushan, in eastern China, on Wednesday as Typhoon Muifa made landfall in the port city, in what local media described as the strongest tropical cyclone to hit the populous Yangtze River Delta in a decade.

Muifa made landfall around 1230 GMT as a strong typhoon, the second level in China’s tropical cyclone classification system, with maximum wind speeds near its center reaching 42 meters per second, according to state meteorologists.

The equivalent 151 kilometers per hour is enough to damage houses, knock down trees and bring down power lines.

Muifa was expected to cross Hangzhou Bay and make landfall a second time around local midnight near Shanghai, before continuing north toward the provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong, state meteorologists said.

Early on Wednesday, China raised its highest tropical cyclone alert as Muifa approached the Yangtze River Delta, a dense cluster of large cities with a total population of more than 230 million people.

The Yangtze Delta is also China’s most prosperous region, with Shanghai as the country’s financial and commercial capital and major industrial cities in its vicinity. The ports of Ningbo-Zhoushan and Shanghai are among the busiest in the world by cargo tonnage.

Source: Euronews