Strong wind brings airport chaos but limited damage to Shanghai
( 2002-07-05 14:53 ) (7 )

Typhoon Rammasun battered China's eastern coastal city of Shanghai with gale-force winds and shearing rain on Friday, causing chaos to flight schedules but limited damage, officials said.

The eye of the typhoon was lurking only 200 kilometers (125 miles) off Shanghai in the East China Sea early Friday, according to Shanghai Anti-Flood Office director Wang Peiling.

"Although it has brought heavy rain and strong winds, there has been very little damage, only a few trees and lamp posts blown over," he said.

However, in Chongming, just to the north of the city, an elderly woman was killed when a wall was blown over by a gust of wind, an official at the Chongming Municipal Anti-Flood Office said.

And in the southern district of Nanhui, local officials reported no casualties but more than 300 hectares (740 acres) were affected by flooding.

There had been concerns that Rammasum might live up to its fearsome name -- the Thai word for "thunder of God -- and bring widespread damage only weeks after devastating flash floods left about 800 feared dead around China.

Anti-flood officials have been on alert in a wide swathe of the country's east affected by the typhoon.

Pelting rain and buffeting wind have battered several hundred miles of China's southeastern and eastern coastline, including the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Fujian to the southeast.

At Shanghai's Pudong International airport, a large number of flights were grounded or re-routed, causing chaos to passengers.

By 11:00 am (0300 GMT) Friday, 106 flights had been grounded to sit out the storm, while 126 incoming planes were re-routed to other airports, an airport official said.

At the smaller Hongqiao airport in the western part of Shanghai, authorities said they had temporarily grounded all flights, without specifying a number, but had yet to cancel any Friday.

Several flights were cancelled the previous night, he said.

Typhoon Rammasun was edging northeast Friday toward the Yellow Sea at a speed of 11 miles (18 kilometers) an hour, forecasters said.

Winds, which were clocked at 55-75 miles (88-120 kilometers) per hour, were expected to gradually weaken as the storm edged past the city, the Shanghai Weather Broadcast Bureau said.