As Rammasun death toll reaches 46, another typhoon on the way
Print Edition
THE death toll from the strongest storm to hit China for decades has reached 46 with another 25 missing, authorities said yesterday, as another typhoon approaches the country’s eastern coastline.
Typhoon Rammasun has left 19 people dead in south China’s island province of Hainan, 18 in southwestern Yunnan and nine in neighboring Guangxi, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement on its website.
Over 620,000 people have been relocated and some 252,000 are in need of “emergency aid,” the statement said.
A total of 37,000 houses have been destroyed since the storm first made landfall in China last Friday afternoon as a super typhoon, packing winds exceeding 200 kilometers an hour.
The strongest typhoon to hit south China since 1973 also devastated the southern Guangdong Province.
Meanwhile, Typhoon Matmo was expected to make a landfall on China’s eastern coast today, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said.
Matmo is packing gusts of up to 173km per hour and is forecast to first hit Taiwan early today before heading west to China’s mainland from the afternoon to evening.
Taiwan has sent troops from the northern city of I-lan to get sandbags ready, while financial markets, companies and schools were expected to close today.
Matmo churned toward Taiwan yesterday, picking up strength as thousands of tourists evacuated from outlying islands after weather forecasters warned of possible flash floods and landslides.
“Over the past three hours its strength has increased and its radius expanded,” an official at the bureau said.
“From now on until tomorrow, mountainous areas in the north and east are forecast to receive severe rainfall” of up to one meter, he said.
“People living in the mountainous areas ought to take precautions against possible landslides, and as flash flooding may happen people should stay away from low-lying areas.”
Around 5,400 tourists were evacuated from Green Island and Orchid Island, two popular scenic spots off the southeastern Taitung county.
The local government said shipping services between the two islets and Taitung were suspended from yesterday for three days.
Several ports were packed with hundreds of fishing vessels that returned from sea following the typhoon alert.
Television images showed a huge crane lifting a giant inflatable rubber duck from a lake in the eastern Hualien county where it had been on display.
In 2009 Morakot, the worst storm to hit Taiwan in half a century, left more than 600 dead, including 400 people from Kaohsiung who were buried by mudslides triggered by torrential rains.
Matmo is expected to make landfall in the Chinese mainland’s Fujian and Zhejiang provinces before heading north, said the NMC.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
