Ocean carriers and shippers on Tuesday were facing a new round of delays after the ports of Shanghai and Ningbo were closed over the weekend as Typhoon Dolphin hit the East China coast.

The cyclone, the strongest to strike China so far this year, also disrupted coastal and inland supply chains after torrential rain caused extensive flooding in a broad swathe of the country north to Beijing and west to Wuhan in the Hubei province. The disruption promises to remove additional functional shipping capacity from China, putting upward pressure on rates during peak season on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trades.

Shipping data platform Linerlytica said more than 2.4 million TEUs of container ship capacity was stranded after the typhoon hit.

“Vessel delays are expected to be protracted with Ningbo and Shanghai the worst affected ports....,” Linerlytica co-founder Hua Joo Tan said in a commentary Monday. “The congestion has also spread to ports in southern China and [will] take a few weeks to clear the vessel backlog.”

Seko Logistics said operations at Ningbo resumed Monday afternoon, with Shanghai following early Tuesday.

Shanghai, Ningbo queues thinned prior to latest storm

The latest storm came as carriers and shippers had already grappled with disruption caused by Typhoon Bavi that closed Shanghai, Ningbo and Qingdao nearly a month ago and Typhoon Noul that closed Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports on July 25.

In its latest sailing schedules published Tuesday, Evergreen said a dozen of its vessels face estimated delays of up to five days between arriving in Shanghai and berthing at the port’s Waigaoqiao and Yangshan terminals. In Ningbo, six Evergreen ships face a wait of two to five days between arriving and berthing.

That comes as the queue of container ships in Shanghai and Ningbo fell to the lowest level in more than two years as of Aug. 3 following delays caused by Typhoon Bavi. There were 15 vessels at Shanghai and six in Ningbo prior to Dolphin’s arrival, according to data from Portcast carried on the Journal of Commerce Gateway platform.

Kuehne + Nagel said in an update Tuesday the average vessel waiting time is almost five days in Shanghai and nearly three days in Ningbo.

Typhoon Dolphin hit the Shanghai and Ningbo areas just days after Maersk said it would drop Shanghai from its Dragon Asia-Oceania service later this month.

While Maersk said Shanghai would be dropped following the launch of the express Qilin service linking Shanghai, Sydney and Melbourne, the carrier said the changes “were designed to provide a more consistent and reliable service” for shippers’ cargo.

Announcing the changes in an advisory on Aug. 4, Maersk said port calls at Ningbo, Hong Kong and Yantian on the Dragon service would also be adjusted “to reduce the impact of weather-related and terminal disruptions on service performance.”