Nine persons were killed and three others listed missing as Super Typhoon Soudelor left behind a trail of destruction in eastern China, with heaviest rains in a century causing mudslides and cave-ins leading to house collapses, state media reported on Sunday.
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Soudelor caused all domestic flights on the island and at least 37 global flights to be cancelled on Saturday.
China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that power to more than two million homes was affected, according to State Grid Fujian Electric Power Co., Ltd. The authorities had evacuated more than 370,000 people and ordered around 32,000 boats back to port before the typhoon struck.
Among those killed by the storm in Taiwan were a mother and her eight-year-old daughter, who were on the island’s east coast beach when the surging swells from the Pacific dragged the pair out to sea. The girl’s twin sister remains missing.
Gao Shuanzhu, chief forecaster from China Meteorological Administration, says the impact of Soudelor will be much longer and broader than the huge storm Chan-Hom, which hit the region last month.
A man passes a damaged structure from Typhoon Soudelor in Taipei, …
Rescuers wade through floodwater at Chengli Village of Sandu Town in Ningde City, southeast China’s Fujian Province, August 9, 2015.
Three airports in the province were closed, with more than 530 flights canceled.
Nearby Wencheng county saw downpours of 645 millimetres in 24 hours – the heaviest in 100 years – after the typhoon made landfall on Saturday night, it said.
Soudelor weakened after passing through Taiwan’s Central Mountain Range, but central and southern Taiwan need to still watch out for strong winds and rains.
Even before the storm made landfall, strong winds knocked out power to more than 1.41 million households in the province, Xinhua said.
The strongest winds were in Suao, where gusts reached 237km/h, the weather bureau said. The neighboring province of Jiangxi also issued a typhoon warning.
Earlier in the weekend, Taiwan’s National Fire Agency said at least 185 people were injured.
At one point, 3.22 million households were without electricity, authorities said – the largest outage attributed to a typhoon in Taiwan.
But unlike Taiwan, no casualties or major damage was reported in mainland China.
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Soudelor has already wreaked havoc in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, passing through this week, and disrupting water and electricity services.
