Chinese authorities bracing for the violent winds and torrential rain of Typhoon Muifa canceled flights and trains in metropolitan Shanghai on Wednesday and shut down some of the country’s busiest commercial ports.
reported that the threat of landslides forced the evacuation of more than 1.3 million people from Zhejiang, which has one of the world’s busiest ports.Experts say the storm was caused in part by the record-high temperatures that have plagued China since June, among a series of extreme weather events that scientists link to climate change.
The worst drought on record continued in large parts of the country, exacerbated by suffocating temperatures up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. At the same, the Western province of Qinghai was hit in August by flash floods that caused mountains to tumble, leaving at least 16 people dead and nearly 20 missing.