China: Half a million evacuated as typhoon approaches

More than 540,000 people evacuated low-lying areas along China’s southeast coast as Typhoon Sepat roared toward the mainland today after battering Taiwan.

Nearly 300,000 people were evacuated in Fujian province, where the storm was expected to hit land tonight, the government’s Xinhua News Agency reported.

Flights to and from the provincial capital of Fuzhou and the coastal cities of Xiamen and Jinjiang were suspended this morning, the agency reported. It said more than 50,000 fishing boats sought shelter in harbours along the Fujian coast.

In Zhejiang province to the north, about 173,000 people left their homes and 24,000 vessels returned to harbour, while 70,000 people moved to higher ground in Guangdong province to the south, Xinhua said.

Heavy rainfall was forecast as far north as Shanghai.

Sepat was expected to hit China’s coast with sustained winds of 90 mph, Xinhua said.

Earlier Sepat slammed into Taiwan, flooding roads, uprooting trees and killing at least one person.

The storm – the third major tropical system to hit Taiwan in the past two weeks - cut an east-west swathe, leaving overturned cars, disrupted electricity grids and deserted streets in its wake.

At least one person was killed in Hualien, when a car overturned and plummeted into a steep valley.

South of that city, authorities ordered the evacuation of more than 1,000 people from the coastal community of Taidung, where electricity supplies were cut to 14,000 homes – a fraction of the 70,000 homes without power in eastern Taiwan.

Sepat is the Malay word for a freshwater fish.