SHANGHAI: The death toll from Typhoon Lekima rose to 32 in eastern China, local authorities said yesterday, as rescue teams worked to find more than a dozen people still missing after the storm triggered a landslide and forced the evacuation of more than a million residents.
The monster storm hit Wenling city early Saturday, packing winds of nearly 190 kilometres per hour and generating waves several metres high along the coast.
At least 18 people were killed in a landslide triggered by torrential downpours in the municipality of Wenzhou, around 400 kilometres south of Shanghai, national broadcaster CCTV said Saturday. A further 14 deaths were announced yesterday, but it was unclear if they were from the same incident. Sixteen people were still miss
ing, according to Zhejiang provincial authorities. “Currently, search and rescue work from various regions is still ongoing,” they said on social media platform Weibo. More than a million people were evacuated from their homes ahead of the typhoon, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Some 110,000 people were housed in shelters.
According to authorities, the natural disaster has caused economic losses of more than 15.8 billion yuan. In Linhai city alone, losses amounted to around 2.1 billion yuan, which included 183 collapsed houses and more than 600 damaged roads. Yesterday, footage from CCTV showed rescue workers on boats navigating through Linhai, where streets were submerged in muddy water. – AFP
