Death toll rises as typhoon rages across China

THE death toll from Typhoon Saomai — the strongest storm to hit China in 50 years — rose to 114 yesterday as more evacuees died when buildings used as shelters collapsed, authorities said.

While residents of China’s southeast coast cleared away the debris of their wrecked houses, rain fell inland as the weakened storm moved west.

Rescuers found eight more bodies in Fuding, a coastal city in Fujian province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It said 183 people were still missing.

Much of the area is still recovering from Tropical Storm Bilis, which killed more than 600 people last month.

Hardest-hit by Saomai was the coastal city of Wenzhou, where at least 81 people were killed after the storm struck late on Thursday with winds up to 170mph, reportedly destroying over 50,000 houses, sinking over 1,000 fishing boats and blacking out six cities.

Cangnan County on Wenzhou’s outskirts suffered 43 deaths, some of them in the collapse of two-to-four-storey residential buildings of reinforced concrete that were thought to be safe in high wind, said a spokesman for the Communist Party committee.