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Typhoon Hagupit wreaks havoc in S.China, killing 6

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-24 21:21

A team of 130 police officers struggled for four hours early on Wednesday to save 50 villagers who were stranded by floods that overflowed a 200-meter embankment in Zhuhai.

Total rain in Zhuhai's Doumen town, one of the worst-hit towns by the storm, reached 194.6 mm in the 22 hours ending at 10 a.m. Wednesday, the local meteorological bureau said.

The water level at Dashi hydrological station in the provincial capital Guangzhou was 2.73 meters on Wednesday morning, a 100-year record, and it showed no sign of subsiding by midday.

Li Jianji, an expert with the provincial astronomical society, said the storm tide was likely to last for a day.

The provincial meteorological bureau said the typhoon was trailing off while moving northwestward at 25 km per hour. But rainstorms were expected to continue through Thursday.

The province recalled more than 50,000 vessels at sea with almost 200,000 fishermen and crew members on Tuesday.

In the capital city of Guangzhou, more than 800 houses were flooded. Police officers in rafts had rescued more than 30 trapped residents by Wednesday noon.

In the coastal city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, frontier police officers saved five fishermen trapped in an aqua-culture farm in the sea, including a woman and two children at around 3 a.m.

Voyage to the Qiongzhou Straits was halted from Tuesday. By Wednesday noon, more than 300 vehicles have detoured to their destinations. Local government estimated that the traffic could be resumed on Thursday morning.

Strong gales and heavy rain also wreaked havoc in the southernmost island province of Hainan, and the provincial capital Haikou issued a notice late on Tuesday, ordering all schools and kindergartens to be closed on Wednesday.

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, 33 flights had been cancelled at Meilan Airport in Haikou, affecting nearly 2,700 passengers. The airport remained closed at 10 a.m.

The airport in Shenzhen also cancelled most domestic flights after 7 p.m. on Tuesday and encouraged passengers to postpone or cancel their trips.

More than 20 flights from Pudong International Airport in Shanghai to Hong Kong were delayed on Wednesday. By 6 p.m., there were still six planes bounding for Hong Kong waiting for taking off.

In adjacent Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, local governments were keeping close watch on secondary disasters.

Hagupit entered the coastal city of Beihai on Wednesday noon, blowing down trees and poles. Schools were closed and billboards were dismantled to prevent them from being blown down. Electricity was cut off in some parts of the city to avoid accidents.

But Hagupit's landfall in Guangdong seemingly eased the rain in the southeastern Fujian Province, meteorologists said.

Affected by the typhoon, most parts of the province were drenched by heavy rain until early Wednesday, with the maximum precipitation hitting 89 mm in the 22 hours ending 6 a.m. in some coastal counties.

The torrential rain weakened to a drizzle in most cities on Wednesday morning and the provincial capital Fuzhou has cleared up.

Hagupit is the second typhoon in a week to affect Taiwan, Fujian and Guangdong, after typhoon Sinlaku lashed the region last week.

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