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Tropical storm Bilis killed at least 48 people and injured
hundreds as it churned across China's southeast, toppling houses
and forcing authorities to evacuate a prison and thousands of
villagers, news reports said Sunday.
More than 100 people were missing after Bilis swept through the
densely populated coast early Friday and turned inland, the
official Xinhua News Agency said, citing disaster officials.
Hardest-hit was the inland province of Hunan, where at least 39
people were dead and 100 missing, Xinhua reported, without saying
how the deaths occurred.
It said 349 people were injured in Hunan and 12,000 stranded by
high water, while 31,400 houses collapsed and 36,630 hectares
(91,200 acres) of crops ruined.
In the city of Lechang, waters were three meters (10 feet) deep
in some places, forcing authorities to move 1,663 inmates from a
prison to higher ground, Xinhua said.
Rising water damaged the main railway line linking Beijing with
the southern business capital of Guangzhou, near Hong Kong,
causing delays for thousands of travelers on the busy route.
In the southeastern coastal province of Guangdong, nine people
were dead and 13 missing, the agency said. The area is the center
of China's export-driven manufacturing industries.
Losses in the neighboring coastal provinces of Zhejiang and
Fujian were estimated at 1.1 billion yuan ($140 million), Xinhua
said. It didn't give figures for Guangdong or Hunan.
The storm flooded farmland and cut roads and power lines,
Xinhua said.
A Russian vessel sank off the coast during the storm, but the
11-member crew were rescued, Xinhua said.
China had evacuated more than 250,000 fishermen and others from
coastal areas and canceled airline flights.
Bilis weakened from a typhoon to a tropical storm early Friday
after lashing Taiwan.
China is hit by several typhoons and suffers hundreds of rain
deaths every summer. The country expects to suffer from more
storms than usual this year due to an unusually warm current off
its Pacific coast and high temperatures over the Tibetan plateau.
At least 349 people died in China in June due to flooding,
landslides and other weather-related disasters, with another 99
people missing, the government says. Damage was estimated at $2.5
billion.
Photos released by Xinhua showed storm-driven waves pounding
the coastline while police officers and soldiers piled up sandbags
to plug a gap in an unfinished flood dike and helped residents of
low-lying areas leave their homes.
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