Chinese authorities evacuated more than 400,000 people in Shanghai as the most powerful typhoon in 75 years bore down closing airports and disrupting rail and road travel.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shanghai’s airports were canceling hundreds of flights Sunday as they brace for impact from Typhoon Bebinca, which is due to make landfall in the early hours of Monday morning, the authorities said.

STORY: The bustling financial hub of Shanghai was brought to a complete standstill by Typhoon Bebinca on Monday (). The Category 1 storm marks the most powerful tropical cyclone to directly hit the city of 25 million in more than seven decades.

Officials in China moved some 414,000 people out of the way in Shanghai before the strongest storm in decades flooded roads and cancelled flights.

Parts of China are preparing for a fresh tropical storm, just days after the country’s eastern seaboard, including Shanghai, was hit by the strongest typhoon it had seen in decades.

The strongest storm to make landfall in Shanghai in recent decades was Typhoon Gloria in 1949, which tore through the city with gusts of 144 kph. Shanghai was last threatened by a direct hit in 2022 by the powerful Typhoon Muifa, which instead landed 300 km away in the city of Zhoushan, in Zhejiang province.

Typhoon Bebinca left a trail of destruction in Shanghai, China, battering the city for six hours yesterday. The storm struck the city with heavy rains and intense winds on September 16. Bebinca has caused flight cancellations in Shanghai and suspended passenger ferry services.