China braces for another typhoon after Yagi hits southern coast

Typhoon Bebinca is forecast to hit China’s east coast early Monday, threatening to bring heavy rainfall that could disrupt oil refineries and LNG import terminals and paralyze shipping.

The expected landfall of Bebinca, currently more than a thousand kilometers offshore, comes just after Super Typhoon Yagi claimed lives and caused extensive damage in the region, including Hainan Island and northern Vietnam. China is set to begin a three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on Sunday, and any severe weather is likely to disrupt travel and further dampen consumption.

Bebinca’s projected route, which China refers to as Beibijia, leads to the coastal areas between Zhejiang province and northern Fujian province. That means the storm could cause Zhoushan port and Ningbo refineries to shut down as it packs wind speeds of up to 162 kilometers (100 miles) per hour, according to the latest report from the National Meteorological Center.

The system is currently forecast to make landfall as a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. The intensity of the storm is seen to weaken rapidly after landfall, the China Meteorological Bureau said.

Photo: Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in Ningbo, China. Photo credit: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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Catastrophe Natural disasters China