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.
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Four people were missing and 101 were injured, authorities said.
Southeastern China is being walloped by powerful Typhoon Soudelor, forcing thousands of evacuations and knocking out the power of millions of homes, the BBC reported Saturday.
In Fujian, strong winds caused power outages to more than 1.41 million households before the storm made landfall, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Taiwan’s death toll rose to six after an eight-year-old girl who went missing Thursday after being swept out to sea with her mother and twin sister was found dead.
China, which faces Taiwan across a narrow strait, has evacuated over 1.58 lakh people from Fujian province as Soudelor approached southeast China’s coastal provinces this evening with downpours and gales.
Soudelour has drawn comparisons with 2009’s Typhoon Morakot, which cut a wide path of destruction over southern Taiwan.
Heavy rains were forecast through Sunday morning in the northern part of Fujian.
Other casualties include a firefighter who was killed after being hit by a motorist as he attempted to move a fallen tree, the news agency said.
Earlier in the week, forecasters declared Soudelor to be the world’s strongest typhoon so far this year, though it later weakened. SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images A picture shows the Jingmei River as Typhoon Soudelor hits Taipei on August 8, 2015.
The typhoon, with winds up to over 200 kilometers per hour and a diameter of 300 kilometers, made landfall on the eastern coast in Hualien around 4 am, sweeping across the island with a storm system covering the entire island, the Central News Bureau (CWB) said.
But Chinese authorities are taking no chances.
Taiwanese airlines announced flight adjustments, canceling a number of domestic and global flights for Saturday, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. “This time, typhoon Soudelor will impact and cover the whole of eastern China, which directly leads to a much longer torrential rain period in the region”.
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“Soudelor will continue to deteriorate as it makes a final landfall in China”, the US military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
