Typhoon leaves at least 32 dead
The powerful storm pounded Guangdong province with gale force winds and torrential rains, touching down in Gangkou town at around 7.50pm (11.50am Irish time) on Tuesday, the Xinhua news agency said.
It swept through several cities in Guangdong, including the capital Guangzhou as well as the economic boom town Shenzhen, and the cities of Shantou and Shanwei, destroying thousands of houses.
Local officials said they were still struggling to determine the extent of the damage, while China News Service estimated economic losses amounted to at least 2 billion yuan (220 million).
In Shenzhen, the hardest-hit city, 20 people were killed, 16 of whom were migrant workers at a construction site where a two-storey factory was under construction.
Twenty other workers on the site were injured.
The typhoon was the worst to hit Shenzhen and south China's Pearl River Delta since 1979, the Shenzhennews.com website said.
Some 4,000 people had to be evacuated from unsafe homes, prompting the civil affairs department to open 272 emergency shelters. More than 6,000 trees were uprooted and many electricity poles were knocked down.
In other parts of Guangdong, 12 more people were killed and 18 injured, the China News Service said.
Of the casualties, four of the dead and seven of the injured were in Huizhou city the town where the typhoon touched down, it said.
Two others died and 11 were injured in Shanwei city, including a six-year-old child crushed by a falling ceiling.
Another death was reported in Guangzhou, where a man watching TV was killed when the roof came crashing down on him, an official from the Guangzhou disaster relief section said.
On Tuesday, fears of the typhoon's arrival shut down businesses and schools in Hong Kong, sending residents scrambling for shelter, after the storm lashed Taiwan leaving two feared dead and causing a major blackout on the island.
Hong Kong was spared a direct hit, but the storm brought heavy rains and powerful winds, injuring 22 people.
