Both city and the country in Asia are bracing for Typhoon Wipha, which was packing winds as high as 165 miles per hour on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007. Millions have been evacuated. At left, a woman in Taipei, Taiwan struggled with her umbrella as Wipha skirted the top of the island. At right, a worker supports the willow tree with a bamboo pole during a Wipha-inspired wind in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province of China.
Heavy rain and clouds filled the Shanghai skyline on September 18, 2007 in China's capital of finance, home to more than 18 million people. Women's World Cup events have been postponed.
As it happens, Shanghai is the site this month of the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, and the players, already having to cope with high humidity, are now facing a storm that has resulted in some cancellations. Here Abby Wambach of the United States plays in the rain surrounded by members of the Nigerian soccer team in Hongkou Stadium in Shanghai. The U.S. won 1-0.
Residents were evacuated to a public school in Shanghai, among some 200,000 residents of that city alone who were evacuated the day before the expected arrival of Typhoon Wipha, potentially the most destructive storm in a decade.
Shanghai had already seen rain flooding roads
Waves smashed against the northern coast of Taiwan. Offices and schools in many northern areas, including capital Taipei, were closed and residents along the northeastern coast were urged to guard against floods caused by heavy tides.
A fisherman packs his fishing net in front of fishing boats taking shelter in a harbor before Typhoon Wipha makes its landfall in Yueqing of Zhejiang Province, China. More than a million people in this and neighboring provinces in East China have been evacuated.
Not far from the fishermen, Children sat in a disaster shelter waiting for Typhoon Wipha to make its landfall
A pair of lovers do not seem as concerned about the coming storm as they pass by the bridge on the West Lake In Hangzhou, the Zhejian province of China.
This image shows Typhoon Wipha taken Tuesday, Sept. 18, Wipha, expected to be the most powerful storm to hit China in a decade, churned toward the densely populated coast on Tuesday with 165 mph wind gusts, and the government evacuated 1.6 million people. The fringes of Typhoon Wipha lashed northern Taiwan, where schools, offices and the stock market closed.
A pedestrian walks in the rain on a road in Shanghai, 18 September 2007, as Typhoon Wipha bares down on China's most populous.