The number of dead left in the wake of Typhoon Talim rose on Saturday to 18 on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported from the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang.
Talim made landfall in the south-eastern coastal province of Fujian on Friday with heavy rains and strong winds.
The storm registered winds of up to 128kph on the coast of the East China Sea. But without being fed by warm ocean waters, Talim weakened into a tropical storm as it moved inland.
Nine people were missing in a series of thunderstorms, landsides and cave-ins caused by Talim, sources from the local Headquarters of Flood Control and Drought Relief were quoted by Xinhua as saying.
According to preliminary statistics, 2,22-million people were affected in hundreds of townships in the cities of Wenzhou and Lishui, both located southern Zhejiang. Meanwhile, 11 789 houses were destroyed in Zhejiang. Fourteen people were killed in Zhejiang; one person was killed in Fujian; and three people were killed in Taiwan.
The direct economic loss is estimated at 3,42-billion yuan ($421,7-million), local government said, according to Xinhua.
About 700 000 people were evacuated from China’s coastal provinces ahead of the typhoon.
Next one on its way
Meanwhile, powerful Typhoon Nabi was churning on Saturday toward the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, bring heavy rain and winds up to 160kph.
Nabi could hit Okinawa, 1 500km south of Tokyo, by early Sunday, said an official from the Japanese meteorological agency.
”The typhoon remains extremely strong,” the official said, adding that Nabi, which means ”butterfly” in Korean, was moving north-west at 15kph.
On Saturday, it was located about 600km south-east of Minamidaitou island, 400km to the east of Okinawa.
Okinawa, a subtropical island chain near Taiwan, is regularly hit by powerful typhoons but strikes on Japan’s southern mainland of Kyushu and other main islands are less frequent.
Last week, Japan was hit by Typhoon Mawar, which brought heavy rain and fierce winds that left at least one person dead and injured four people.
Mainland Japan was struck by a record 10 typhoons last year. One of them, Tokage, was the deadliest typhoon in a quarter-century, killing 90 people. — Sapa-DPA, AFP