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Typhoon leaves 16 dead in China

20,000 houses destroyed, lakhs of hectares of crops damaged

HAIKOU (CHINA): Damrey, the 18th typhoon this year, claimed 16 lives in south China's Hainan province after it slammed into this island province early on Monday morning.

Damrey tortured Hainan for more than 10 hours, bringing strong winds and driving rainstorms to the province.

Vice-Governor Wu Changyuan said the tropical storm flattened more than 20,000 houses and damaged over 380 km of highways.

Large-scale damage

The typhoon also damaged 704,000 hectares of crops and caused great losses of aquatic products and rubber plantations in the province, Mr. Wu said.

The total economic loss caused is estimated to be 10 billion yuan ($1.2 billion).

Typhoon Damrey landed at the north of Wanning city in eastern part of Hainan province at 4 a.m. on Monday. The tropical storm, with a wind speed of 55 metres per second at the centre, dwarfed all those that had ravaged Hainan since 1960, except for Typhoon No. 7314, which hit the province on September 13, 1973, said Cai Qinbo, deputy director of the Hainan Provincial Meteorological Station. In Vietnam, the typhoon which hit the coastal localities of the country, killed four persons and injured nine others.

With the wind speed of 75-88 kmph, Damrey, the strongest typhoon hitting Vietnam over the past nine years, also swept away four fishing boats in Thanh Hoa, destroyed over 20,000 hectares of rice and other subsidiary crops and many sea dyke segments, and damaged more than 1,000 houses in coastal areas from northern Quang Ninh province to central Thua Thien Hue province, according to Vietnam News Agency. — Xinhua

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