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Typhoon Morakot slams east China

A hotel building in Taitung county, Taiwan, that collapsed after floodwaters caused by Typhoon Morakot eroded its base on Sunday. — Photo: AP

FUZHOU: Typhoon Morakot slammed into Chinese provinces on the eastern coast on Sunday, causing casualties, destroying houses and inundating farmlands.

Morakot made landfall in the coastal areas of Beibi, in Xiapu county in Fujian Province, at 4.20 p.m. packing winds up to 119 km per hour, said the province’s meteorological bureau. The sky turned completely dark in Beibi and many trees were uprooted in the strong winds.

Farmers were trying to recapture a sizeable quantity of fish flushed from mudflat aquafarms by waves. In Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, 34 domestic flights were cancelled and 20 delayed. The city also suspended most passenger bus services. In Zhejiang Province, 155 passenger ship sailings were cancelled and more than 7,400 vessels called back from the sea as the province’s maritime authority raised the typhoon alarm to a red alert, its highest level, on Sunday morning.

The front of the eighth typhoon of the year had triggered continuous downpours and strong winds in Fujian and its neighbouring Zhejiang Province before its landing, which forced the evacuation of nearly 1 million people to safety. Five houses were destroyed in Wenzhou city in Zhejiang just after 8 a.m. on Sunday. A four-year-old boy buried in the debris later died after emergency treatment failed, said the city’s flood-control headquarters.

The typhoon earlier lashed Taiwan with torrential rains that caused the island’s worst flooding in 50 years and left dozens missing and feared dead. Taiwan’s Disaster Relief Centre said a woman was killed when her vehicle plunged into a ditch in Kaohsiung county in heavy rain on Friday, and two men drowned in Pingtung and Tainan respectively. It said 31 were missing and feared dead. — Xinhua, AP

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