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Storms batter China, 18 killed including Briton: state media
Shanghai (AFP) Sept 25, 2008 Torrential rains left at least 18 dead in China, including a Briton, and 17 missing, as Typhoon Hagupit pounded the south and another storm battered the quake-hit southwest, state media said Thursday. Ten people were confirmed dead in southern Guangdong province and Guangxi Zhuang region, where Hagupit toppled 18,500 houses, destroyed crops and brought reservoirs to the brink of overflowing, Xinhua news agency reported. The 52-year-old British chief engineer on a freighter owned by Danish company Maersk died after being injured when his ship was caught in the typhoon near Xiamen late Tuesday, said Kate Sanderson, a Maersk spokeswoman in London. He broke his back and legs as the ship was tossed in the storm, she added. Off the coast of Guangdong, rescuers were searching for 17 sailors who went missing after their South Korean cargo ship ran aground near the island of Shangchuan, according to Xinhua. A salvage ship from the South China Sea Rescue Bureau struggled to reach the island despite the hurricane-level gale. But after a three-hour search, it found only the broken vessel on the rocks of the island, with the crew still missing, according to Xinhua. The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm after hitting Guangdong and landed in northern Vietnam at 7 a.m. (2300 GMT Wednesday), where it continued northwest, the China Meteorological Administration said in a statement. Emergency officials put economic losses due to Hagupit at 6.3 billion (923.7 million dollars), the agency reported, calling it the worst typhoon to hit the province in a decade. Meanwhile, a separate storm on Wednesday cut off more than 20,000 people in five towns in Jiangyou, an area in Sichuan recovering from the May 12 quake, as telephone lines were downed and roads became impassable, Xinhua reported. At least eight were killed and 38 were missing in Sichuan after the rains triggered flash floods, cave-ins and landslides, the agency reported. Authorities have evacuated more than 6,500 people in the region. Fifty-three soldiers and 32 workers repairing a mountainous road damaged in the quake were stranded Thursday in the rain and ensuing landslides, said Zeng Wanming, a local mayor. In Guangdong's provincial capital Guangzhou, more than 800 houses were flooded, and police officers on rafts rescued more than 30 trapped residents. In Hong Kong, nearly 60 people aged from six to 89 were hospitalised with typhoon-related injuries, the Hong Kong government said in a statement. Three were in serious condition. In the coastal city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, frontier police rescued five people trapped at sea in a fishing vessel. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Typhoon lashes southern China, hitting travel, schools
Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 24, 2008Typhoon Hagupit slammed into southern China on Wednesday after battering Hong Kong, where it injured dozens of people, disrupted air travel and forced the closure of schools, officials said. |
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