SUPER TYPHOON MERANTI sent a massive inflatable moon bobbing through the streets of southern China’s Fuzhou, smothering cars and sending at least one motorcyclist fleeing for cover, as the powerful storm lashed the mainland.
Footage broadcast by state television showed the inflatable moon bowling over traffic in the city with the typhoon packing winds of 170 kilometres per hour (105 miles per hour).
AFP was unable to confirm where the moon originated from and what fate the inflatable object eventually met.
According to local media in Shanghai however, the moon is one of many mini model lunar orbs set up in public spaces around the vast country for the mid-Autumn festival, making up for the fact that the actual moon is shrouded in cloud due to ongoing bad weather.
The Xinhua news agency has described the storm as the most powerful to hit Fujian province in at least 67 years, with meteorological records only going back to the founding of communist China in 1949.
Local media described windows broken by flying roof tiles with fragments littering pavements and water supplies cut.
Officials had earlier urged people to stay at home and ordered ships to return to port as Meranti bore down on the mainland, having lashed Taiwan yesterday.
The storm left one person dead and 38 injured after skirting past the island’s southern tip, with the strongest winds recorded there in 21 years.
With reporting from Darragh Peter Murphy.
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