China’s Main Ports Suspending Operations as Super Typhoon Approaches
Chinese officials are issuing warnings and making preparations, including suspending port operations, as an expected Super Typhoon is approaching. While Typhoon Dolphin is not expected to make landfall on the Chinese coast until late on Sunday or early Monday, and it might still weaken, China’s ports are advising ships to head to sea and suspending operations, which will likely cause large backlogs.
Bloomberg reports that fueling operations for ships were suspended at China’s largest maritime operations, while more than 160 ferry routes were suspended, fishing boats were ordered to evacuate, and ships have been barred from the Yangtze River and delta. The massive port complex outside Shanghai at Zhoushan and Ningbo has reportedly stopped operations. Ships have reportedly been urged to move southward to avoid the worst of the storm.
Rainfall from the outer bands of the massive storm had begun reaching Beijing as of Friday evening, with warnings of potential floods, mudslides, and landslides in the outlying agricultural areas. Beijing reports that more than 2,000 people have been deployed to provide assistance with the anticipated flooding. Forecasts have said some areas could experience over 20 inches of rain within a 24-hour period.
The storm brushed past part of Japan on Friday, August 7, with reports that the airport in Okinawa had closed. Vacationers from China were stranded, and in parts of Okinawa, people were evacuating to shelters. The exact details of the storm vary by report, which said wind speeds were between a sustained 89 and 94 mph.
China’s National Meteorological Center issued warnings late on Friday forecasting potential wind speeds of 107 mph near the center of the storm and barometric pressure falling to 940 hectopascals. Currently, it said the storm was moving at just 9 miles per hour with expected landfall between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning. The forecast is predicting waves of between 10 and 15 feet off Shanghai and a storm surge of between 1.6 and 4 feet for the Yangtze River estuary.
Typhoon Dolin is the 13th storm of the 2026 season and comes just weeks after ports around Shanghai were forced to close between July 11 and 13. After the storm, Shanghai port officials said they had been able to quickly return to a pace of handling 172,000 TEU per day, but a large backlog had still built up. Ships also reported a shortage of berths as they were vying for space to dock and resume loading and unloading.
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The Shanghai International Port Group smashed all records last Saturday, August 1, with the port complex handling a staggering 203,881 TEU. It was a nearly nine percent increase over a record that had been set at the beginning of June and 18.5 percent of the port’s recent daily average.
The Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan complex handled a record-breaking volume of more than 43 million TEU in 2025. While it is smaller than Shanghai, it is the world's third-largest container port, and by total volume -- 1.4 billion tons in 2025 – it is the busiest port in the world. A suspension of even a few days will create large backlogs that will cascade out from the ports to other operations on the global supply chain.
