Post-typhoon deluge swamps city

A shop owner grabs a basin to bail floodwater out of her shop on Lishan Road in Putuo district Tuesday. The heavy rain flooded the stores on the road, forcing some shopkeepers to borrow water pumps to remove the floodwater. Photo: Cai Xianmin/GT

More than 600 houses in more than 30 residential compounds were flooded Tuesday in the deluge that came in the wake of Typhoon Fitow, the city's flood control administration said.

The flooding disrupted flights, trains, ferries and road traffic late Monday and into Tuesday as the city got more rain in a single day that it has seen since 1961.

On average, 152.9 millimeters of rain fell on the city from 8 pm Monday to noon Tuesday, breaking the record set 52 years ago, according to the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

The bureau issued a red storm alert at 7:38 am Tuesday, after raising the alert level twice Monday evening. It warned that the rain would be especially heavy downtown and in Songjiang, Minhang and Qingpu districts, as well as Chongming county.

In Qibao town, Minhang district, the floodwater was about half a meter deep outside the first-floor apartment of local resident Cao Zhiyi. Cao told the Global Times that the downpour overwhelmed the local drainage system, causing water to spout from several sewer openings. He wasn't able to go to work until the flooding subsided around 1 pm.

In Songjiang district, river water flooded a residential compound on Rongle Road East. The floodwater remained more than 70 centimeters deep until the late afternoon, said Yu Ying, a local resident who took the day off from work due to the weather.

Part of a flood wall along the Huangpu River collapsed Tuesday due to the high water levels.

Shanghai South Railway Station lost power at 9:21 am after a power substation on the Shanghai-Kunming Line was flooded, Shanghai Television Station reported. The outage delayed several trains. The power was restored around 10 am.

The Shanghai Railway Bureau canceled five bullet trains bound for Jinshan district from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, said Tao Liping, a bureau press officer.

As of 4 pm, 45 flights had been delayed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport due to the weather, according to the airport's microblog. Thirty of the flights were delayed more than two hours. Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport canceled seven flights and had to reroute 14 flights to land in other cities, including Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, and Hefei, Anhui Province.

Ferries on 18 lines on the Huangpu River were suspended around 1:30 pm, according to the Shanghai Municipal Transport and Port Authority.

The Shanghai Zoo, Jinjiang Action Park, Guyi Garden and Shanghai Gongqing Forest Park closed Tuesday due to safety concerns.

The flood control authority implemented its highest-level emergency plan and sent workers to bring down water levels in area waterways, said Zhang Zhenyu, a press officer for the authority. It also dispatched 20 water pumps to waterlogged areas.

About 176 water pumps drained 41.85 million cubic meters of floodwater downtown from 8 am Monday to 8 am Tuesday. The downtown drainage system transported 7.59 million tons of rainwater, about 70 percent more than average, said Zhou Daohong, a press officer with Shanghai Chengtou Corp, which oversees most of the water pumps downtown.

Although the weather bureau canceled the storm alert at noon Tuesday, the flood control administration continued to work in some flooded areas, Zhang told the Global Times.