Typhoon Dolphin Grounds Nearly 40 Percent of Shanghai Flights as Fires Spread in Indonesia

Shanghai's airports cancelled close to 40 percent of Monday's flights after Typhoon Dolphin made landfall in eastern China on Sunday evening and continued moving north, according to a city government notice reported by the South China Morning Post. Heavy rain persisted through the morning. Shanghai handles a large share of China's air freight as well as passenger traffic, so a day of cancellations at Pudong and Hongqiao removes capacity from export supply chains as well as travel.

Further south, forest fires in Indonesia are producing transboundary smoke again. At least two Malaysian states, Sarawak and Selangor, registered unhealthy air readings on Monday as smoke moved north.

Indonesian authorities said a fire in Mount Bromo National Park in East Java that burned 550 hectares has been extinguished, though new hotspots have appeared near the caldera during what officials describe as an unusually dry season.

Both events are ordinary in isolation and cumulative in effect. A single typhoon costs a day of flights. A dry season that produces recurring fires costs Malaysia and Indonesia in school closures, hospital admissions, aviation visibility and tourism arrivals, year after year, with no insurance market that prices it well.