14 dead in China as Typhoon Soudelor lashes coastal provinces
Wind and record-breaking downpours trigger floods and mudslides after storm blasts Taiwan
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 09 August, 2015, 11:40pm
UPDATED : Monday, 10 August, 2015, 8:27am
Agencies in Beijing
Paramilitary police walk warily through Chengli village in Ningde, Fujian province, following the arrival of Typhoon Soudelor on Saturday night. Photo: EPA
A typhoon that lashed Taiwan battered the mainland with heavy rain and winds on Sunday, leaving 14 people dead and four missing, levelling homes and cutting power to more than a million households.
Typhoon Soudelor made landfall in Fujian province late on Saturday and was downgraded into a tropical storm as it moved across the region.
The storm killed 12 people in eastern China and five were missing after parts of the country were hit by the heaviest rains in a century, state media reported. The casualties were reported in and around Wenzhou in Zhejiang, where downpours caused mudslides and several houses collapsed on Saturday night, Xinhua reported.
Wencheng county in Zhejiang saw its heaviest rain in 100 years - 645mm in 24 hours - after the typhoon made landfall.
Tropical Storm Risk, based in London, downgraded Soudelor to a tropical storm.
Television reports showed partially submerged vehicles abandoned on flooded roads as soldiers waded through water, searching for victims.
The Fujian Civil Affairs Department said that the storm destroyed 530 houses and damaged 19,700 others. It said more than 10 million people in the province were affected, and 15,300 people needed emergency help. Economic losses to the province were estimated at 3.83 billion yuan (HK$4.8 billion).
State broadcaster CCTV showed people wading in knee-deep water in the provincial capital Fuzhou and reported that some streets were submerged under 80cm of water.
