BEIJING, July 26: What was Typhoon Gaemi has weakened to a severe tropical storm and headed toward inland China on Friday after making landfall the previous evening on the east coast.
The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage. Five people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength on Thursday before heading over open waters to China.
The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn’t strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 32, authorities there said on Friday.
The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.
China
Gaemi waned into a severe tropical storm after coming ashore on Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.
About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan (USD 1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.
Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country’s northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Taiwan
Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water on Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan.
Five people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 650 people were injured, the emergency operations centre said.
Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south, President Lai Ching-te commended the city’s efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.
Lai announced that cash payments of USD 20,000 New Taiwan Dollars (USD 610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.
Philippines
At least 32 people have died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.
The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.
Earlier this week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.
The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out on Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province. (AP)
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