Tropical storm Podul disrupts southern China schools and courts

Tropical storm Podul on Thursday dumped torrential rain on southern China, still reeling from record downpours last week, and disrupted hospitals, schools and courts in Hong Kong after tearing through Taiwan and leaving at least 143 people injured.

The hearing of Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai was cancelled after authorities put in place their highest-level "black" rainstorm warning, as supporters queued under umbrellas outside the court. Medical authorities also announced that out-patient clinics would remain shut until the rain had passed.

Meanwhile, airports across the region reported cancellation rates of around 20%, according to data from Flightmaster, as Podul pelted parts of the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi with more than 70 mm (2.76 inches) of rain an hour.

More than a third of flights to Quanzhou - a key textile, footwear and apparel export hub - were cancelled, with analysts warning extreme weather events increasingly pose a threat to growth in the world's second-largest economy.

China has been battling with record rainfall in its north and south as well as prolonged heatwaves in its interior. The government on Thursday announced 430 million yuan ($59.9 million) in fresh funding for disaster relief, taking the total allocated since April to at least 5.8 billion yuan.

"Authorities need to be extra ready," said Chim Lee, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. "There's growing evidence that we're seeing more intense and slower-moving tropical cyclones.

"China's southern coast is set for economic disruptions of all kinds. Most institutions in the region are fairly well prepared, but there also seems to be a subtle northward shift in where cyclones reach their peak intensity - these places need to keep a sharper eye out."

Podul made landfall on the coast of China's southeastern province of Fujian at 00:30 local time (1630 GMT Wednesday), having weakened from a typhoon to a tropical storm after lashing Taiwan on Wednesday, where winds of up to 191 kph (118 mph) left one person missing and scores injured.

But its residual vortex stands to wreak havoc in southern China, still reeling from the heaviest rains in generations last week, as it moves northwest at a speed of 30-35 km per hour (19-22 mph).

Across Guangdong, 75,000 people were evacuated from their homes last week, as a record 622.6 mm (24.5 inches) of rain fell on Guangzhou, the provincial capital from 2-6 August - almost three times the average rainfall for the city in August - killing at least seven people.

Hong Kong last week experienced its heaviest August rainfall since 1884 last Tuesday.

Authorities in Guangdong's Meizhou closed all the highways on Thursday due to the downpour, state media reported, while the high-speed railway linking the high-tech hubs of Shenzhen and Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province, some 1,200 km (745 miles) away, was also suspended.

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