Wipha, the seventh typhoon this year, made landfall at around 1:50 a.m. Thursday in the coastal regions of the city of Wenchang, south China’s Hainan Province, with gales of up to 23 meters per second at its eye, according to local authorities.
Hainan has seen heavy rain from Tuesday evening, with maximum rainfall of 276.1 mm within 24 hours in Haikou, the provincial capital, the Hainan provincial meteorological bureau said. No casualties have been reported.
The gales and heavy rain have also disrupted local traffic. Haikou Meilan International Airport has cancelled 50 flights and the airport in the city of Sanya has cancelled six flights on Thursday.
All ferry services in the Qiongzhou Strait and high-speed rail services circling the island have been ordered to be suspended, while more than 100 bus routes in Haikou have stopped operation as of 10 a.m. Thursday. Wipha is expected to move northwest at a speed of around 10 km per hour and make landfall again in Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong Province around noon Thursday.
