1.6 million flee as Typhoon Saomai slams China

BEIJING - The death toll in coastal China from Typhoon Saomai jumped to at least 111 on Friday, with an additional 11 people missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Eighty-one people were killed in the southeastern city of Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province, there the typhoon made landfall, Xinhua said.

It did not give any details, but the bodies of 43 people, including eight children, were discovered in Wenzhou's Cangnan county amid the debris of collapsed houses, Xinhua said.

Another 28 people were killed and three were missing in other parts of Zhejiang, Xinhua said without elaborating.

In neighboring Fujian province, two people were killed, it said.

In Zhejiang province, authorities relocated 1 million people on Thursday as the densely populated commercial region braced for the lashing winds and rains, Xinhua said.

Xinhua reported that 1,000 houses were blown over in Cangnan and 80 people were injured. Fujian province moved 620,000 people.

135-mph winds
The typhoon landed with a wind velocity of 135 mph per hour, and was more powerful than a typhoon that hit Zhejiang in August 1956 and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 3,000, Xinhua said.

“So far, about 20,000 soldiers and militiamen have been deployed on the eastern border to boost rescue and disaster relief efforts,” Xinhua said.

The storm, the eighth to hit China this year, injured more than 80 people, the report said, quoting local sources.

“The worst of it now seems to have passed, but we are withou t mains power and have to rely on our generator,” hotel worker Jiao Qing told Reuters in the city of Ningde, not far from Cangnan.

“It was quite scary, with all the wind and rain, but we’re used to it.”

Main highway shut
Police closed the main coastal highway forcing traffic onto narrow mountain roads, where drivers weaved around landslides and dodged fallen branches as rain lashed down and lightning lit up a leaden sky.

Neighbouring Fujian province reported two deaths in the city of Fuding and 12 people missing, Xinhua said.

Some 77 square miles of rice fields had been inundated after 12 inches of rain fell in the space of just one hour, Xinhua said.

Storm tracker Tropical Storm Risk initially graded Saomai a category 5 “super” typhoon — its highest category — but reduced that to category 4 after it came ashore.

It saw Saomai weakening quickly to a tropical storm.

The greater Wenzhou area, which includes Cangnan and is home to 7.4 million people, has declared a state of emergency and authorities have blocked highways into the worst-affected areas.

Factories, shops and offices had been ordered to stop all activities “unrelated to battling the typhoon”, state media said.

Stockpiling and escape
Residents reinforced windows and doors against the storm and stockpiled drinking water and food, while those with flimsier homes headed to schools, theatres and stadiums to take shelter.

Wenzhou airport was closed and hundreds of passengers were stranded, an airport manager said.

Xinhua reported that Zhejiang authorities had already evacuated nearly 1 million people, with 569,000 more people moved in the neighboring province of Fujian.

Tropical Storm Bilis killed more than 600 in China last month and typhoon Prapiroon killed about 80 last week.

Tropical Storm Bopha fizzled to the south of Taiwan this week and another veered toward the east of Japan.