Typhoon hits China: 63 dead
2004-08-13 06:57
Shanghai - At least 63 people were killed and more than 1 800 injured when a powerful typhoon ripped through eastern China, leaving massive destruction in its wake, local officials said on Friday.
Typhoon Rananim, one of the strongest storms in years, hit land in Wenling city on the coast of Zhejiang province, about 135km south of Shanghai, late on Thursday.
Provincial officials said 42 400 homes were destroyed and 88 000 were damaged while 260 000 of farmland was ruined and thousands of trees uprooted.
The death toll was likely to rise as the storm roared its way through the province.
"Conditions are very bad"
"Initial statistics show that at least 63 are dead and 185 are seriously injured," an official from the disaster relief section of the Zhejiang provincial civil affairs bureau said.
The bureau said 1 800 people had been injured. More than 31 000 head of livestock also perished.
Another official at the same office, surnamed Su, said at least 15 people were missing and the death toll was likely to rise.
"The conditions are very bad and because we are still gathering information this figure is likely to increase," the official said.
There was no immediate news on the fate of more than 60 people stranded at sea on board fishing boats as the storm hit.
"The typhoon hit the city badly," a Wenling civil affairs bureau official surnamed Wang said.
"Everywhere there are uprooted trees. Some trees have even been cut off in the middle. Virtually all the traffic signs have been blown over and are on the roads," she said.
"There's flooding and most of the roads are closed. Windows are shattered and walls have collapsed, houses have been destroyed."
The city was without power for most of the night although it had been restored by Friday morning.
About 510 000 people were evacuated from coastal areas in the province before the typhoon, which was packing winds clocked at 160km whipped in off the sea.
The Wenling Meteorological Bureau said Rananim had now been downgraded to a tropical storm but was still blowing force nine winds as it made its way west into Jiangxi and Hunan provinces.
"The eye of the typhoon has moved to Changshan county and lessened to a tropical storm," said spokesman Xu Huihuang.
The worst is over
"At the centre the wind is now force nine and over the next few days it will move to Jiangxi and Hunan provinces, bringing heavy rain."
An official at the Zhejiang anti flood and drought headquarters added: "The dangerous period had passed. Today the wind speed has reduced a lot but it is still blowing, it is still raining.
"Today's situation is better but it's not over yet."
East China is prone to typhoons and has been pummelled by at least 14 over the past 50 years.
The worst on record was in 1997 when 236 people were killed.
- AFP