Shanghai airports cancel hundreds of flights as Typhoon Bebinca draws near

Shanghai's airports are cancelling 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.

Flights past 8 pm local time will be cancelled at Hongqiao and Pudong airports in the city, the airport officials said in a statement, affecting more than six hundred flights. The city also announced that it was suspending travel on some bridges while restricting that on other highways.

Typhoon Bebinca is currently a few hundred kilometers away from the coast.

The typhoon's winds are expected to reach 151 km per hour by Sunday night, according to the China Meteorological Administration, which has categorised it as a strong typhoon.

State media reported that 9,318 people had been evacuated from one district in Shanghai. Meanwhile, in the nearby city of Zhoushan, restaurants, supermarkets and shops shut down early for the day, and public transportation services were halted.

The storm is expected to bring up to 10 inches (254 millimetres) of rain in parts of the eastern coast that will be hardest hit, according to state media.