Typhoon Bebinca made landfall in Shanghai and Zhejiang Province on Monday morning, prompting highway closures, bus suspensions, ship evacuations, and extensive emergency measures across the region.
According to the municipal meteorological authorities, Typhoon Bebinca is the most powerful typhoon to hit Shanghai in decades.
On Sunday night, four district-level meteorological observatories in Shanghai elevated the orange alert to a red alert for Typhoon Bebinca, the 13th this year, as its intensity was estimated to be a strong typhoon.
In response, local authorities closed all highways across the city, reduced speed limits on urban expressways and overpasses to 40 km per hour, and suspended operations of ferris wheels at coastal resorts and bus operations in some areas.
More than 414,000 residents have been evacuated to safety and 810-plus ships have returned to ports.
Furthermore, the city's two airports, Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport, have canceled all flights after 20:00 on Sunday.
Over 2,500 rescue teams, comprising 56,000-strong troubleshooters, are on standby for emergency response.
In neighboring Zhejiang Province, the typhoon has unleashed high gales and rainstorms along the coastline.
In the city of Zhoushan, the maritime affairs department has installed warning signs to advise all tourists and residents to stay clear of the coast areas. In addition, public security personnel were required to conduct round-the-clock patrols until the typhoon's intensity subsides.
Typhoon Bebinca lands in east China, triggering emergency measures
Typhoon Bebinca lands in east China, triggering emergency measures
Typhoon Bebinca lands in east China, shutting down highways, buses, tourists' attractions
With the beginning of the cotton harvest season, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is anticipating higher yields from advancements in agricultural technology and mechanization.
Xinjiang is the largest production area of high-quality commodity cotton in China. The 2.47-million-hectare cotton growing area in the region has produced more than 5 million tons of cotton for six consecutive years.
The northern and southern parts of the vast autonomous region have different climates, different cotton varieties and also different growing periods. Currently, cotton picking started two weeks ago in northern Xinjiang, while the harvesting has just begun in the southern areas.
In Tumxuk City, located in southern Xinjiang, cotton farmers are using all-in-one harvesters to help them pick cotton, separate the flowers from the stalks and pack them into bundles.
"In the past, we picked the cotton manually. It took us more than a month to pick 100 mu (6.67 hectares) of cotton, and the cost reached 1,000 yuan per mu (about 2,106 U.S. dollars per hectare). Now, we use domestically produced cotton pickers to gather them, which have high efficiency and low cost. It now takes less than a day to harvest my 100 mu of cotton, with a cost less than 200 yuan per mu," said Turaxun Samat, a local farmer.
This year, Xinjiang has vigorously promoted the new cotton planting technology of drip irrigation under the mulching film at the appropriate emergence temperature, replacing the old method of irrigating before sowing. The technology can greatly improve the emergence rate while also saving water resources.
In addition, the precision sowing supported by BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and remote sensing monitoring by the agricultural big data platform have also been widely adopted across Xinjiang, contributing to the growth of cotton output.
"This year, a total of 1,057,800 mu (about 70,520 hectares) of cotton have been planted in Tumxuk City, and the unginned cotton yield is estimated at 451.4 kilograms per mu, an average increase of 11.7 kilograms per mu over the previous year," said Chen Yongsen, a member of the leadership of the city's Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
The cotton harvesting in Xinjiang is expected to end in early November.
Xinjiang enters cotton harvest season with higher yield expected
