Typhoon sweeps China's coast
Agencies
Published: August 19, 2007, 08:40
Beijing: Typhoon Sepat swept China's southern coast on Sunday, forcing almost a million people from their homes and spawning a tornado that smashed buildings and killed nine people.
The tornado wrecked 156 houses and injured more than 60 residents in China's Zhejiang Province, Xinhua state news agency reported.
Experts believe the tornado was formed under the influence of typhoon Sepat, Xinhua said.
"The bizarre wind smashed all the windows of our four-storey building and tore down my mum's old house in no more than one minute," the agency quoted 48-year-old villager Zhang Zhongling as saying. "Just like a hurricane."
More than 900,000 people in southern China have been relocated to higher ground after the typhoon cut power and flooded homes in parts of Taiwan and the Philippines on Saturday.
Sepat is heading northwest toward Jiangxi Province and could unleash 400 mm of rain in southern Fujian province in the next three days, said Xinhua.
Typhoon Sepat did not make landfall over the Philippines but exacerbated monsoon rains as it rumbled past the archipelago.
Disaster officials in the Philippines said three people drowned in flooding. Nearly 550,000 people were affected by floodwaters in Manila and the northern provinces, and over 3,500 people were sheltering in evacuation centres.
Parts of the capital and surrounding provinces remained under water on Sunday.
Taiwan's disaster centre said 27 people had been hurt in the typhoon. About 2,500 people were evacuated and nearly 9,000 homes were still without electricity.
The storm had cut power to more than 70,000 homes in Taiwan and forced airlines to delay flights from airports in the north and south of the island.
Typhoon sweeps China's coast
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