A weakened Typhoon Soudelor made landfall in China and was set to be downgraded Sunday, according to the National Meteorological Center, after the storm killed five people in Taiwan.
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The storm landed in Fujian province and cut off power to over three million homes there, the agency said, but electricity had been restored to more than a third of the homes by yesterday morning.
A powerful typhoon battered Taiwan on Saturday with strong wind and torrential rain, cutting power to 3.62 million households as the death toll rose to six.
The flood control and drought relief headquarters of Zhejiang province said the victims may have been buried beneath collapsed houses or swept away by floods as heavy rains resulted in mudslides and cave-ins in rural parts of Wenzhou city. The girl’s twin sister remained missing on Sunday.
People wade through a flooded street at a town hit by Typhoon Soudelor in Ningde, Fujian province, China, August 9, 2015. Taiwanese airlines have announced flight adjustments, canceling a number of domestic and worldwide flights for Saturday, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
The chaotic scene in Fujian province of China comes amid heavy rains and gale force winds, state media reported. Five people were reported missing, and more than 60 were injured, many by flying debris, the ministry said.The storm, called Soudelor, had registered as the strongest of 2015 as it blew across the western Pacific days earlier.
The storm made landfall early on Saturday morning on the island’s east-coast counties of Yilan and Hualien, bringing up to 1,000mm of rain in mountainous northeastern areas, with wind raging at up to 200kph.
Other casualties included a firefighter who was killed and another injured after being hit by a drunken driver as they attempted to move a fallen tree in the island’s south.
Forecasters estimated the storm would come with winds of about 125 miles per hour in Taiwan, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.
Anhui and Jiangsu provinces have launched a level-three emergency response for the typhoon and rainstorms, following nearby Jiangxi Province. Another 68 global flights were delayed, the Taiwan-based China Post reported.
A man passes a damaged structure from Typhoon Soudelor in Taipei, … Toppled trees and signboards damaged electricity lines, knocking out power to a record four million households.
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President Barack Obama has declared the Northern Marianas a disaster area and ordered federal aid to help the U.S. territory.
