Strongest typhoon in 41 years kills 17 in south China

BEIJING — The strongest typhoon to hit southern China in four decades has killed 17 people after claiming at least 94 lives in the Philippines, officials said yesterday.

Typhoon Rammasun killed nine people and left five missing after hitting Hainan island on Friday off China’s southern coast, said an official from the Ministry of Water Resources’ flood control department. Eight others died later in the Guangxi region as the storm ploughed into the mainland on its way north to Vietnam.

The typhoon is the strongest to hit southern China in 41 years, said the China Meteorological Administration. Wind speeds reached 216kmh, with the storm knocking down power lines and damaging buildings, Xinhua said.

Almost 5.6 million people in coastal Guangdong and Hainan provinces, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were affected, Xinhua said, citing the local civil affairs authorities. Relief efforts are being hampered by damage to power and telecommunications networks, ports and roads, and water supplies, it reported.

Economic losses from Rammasun exceed 10.8 billion yuan (S$2.15 billion), the report cited the provincial civilian authorities as saying.

Weather authorities downgraded Rammasun to a tropical depression yesterday morning and warned that areas such as Yunnan, Guizhou and western Guangxi could face heavy rain and experience landslides. The storm is forecast to move inland, hitting mountainous southern China and northern Vietnam with downpours that threaten landslides and flooding.

The authorities in southern China ordered the highest level of alert and suspended hundreds of buses, trains and flights across the region.

The typhoon had wreaked havoc earlier in the week in the northern Philippines, leaving 94 people dead.

Six people remained missing in the Philippines and more than half a million are still in evacuation centres after Rammasun swept across the archipelago.

The cyclone displaced about 1.6 million people and caused an estimated 7.3 billion pesos (S$208 million) of damage, as it struck the Philippines, said the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. The storm damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes and more than 300 people were injured, the council said.

A new tropical cyclone, designated Matmo, has developed sustained winds of 70 knots (130kmh), gusting to 85 knots (157kmh), said the Joint Typhoon Warning Center of the United States Navy. Centred about 500 nautical miles (930km) east south-east of Manila and tracking north-west at 7 knots (13kmh), Matmo will probably brush by the northern Philippines tomorrow night, before crossing over Taiwan and heading towards mainland China, the centre’s latest forecast shows. AGENCIES