CHINA:Typhoon Wipha swept through eastern China yesterday, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing the evacuation of more than two million people.
Five people were killed, mostly by landslides, and three more were missing, Xinhau news agency said. However, the tempest weakened before it hit Shanghai, China's biggest city and financial centre.
Authorities had warned that Wipha would be the most powerful storm to hit China in 10 years and their fears seemed to be confirmed when the "super typhoon" made landfall at Cangan county in Zhejiang province at 45 metres per second in the early hours of Wednesday.
Shanghai, a city of 20 million people, ordered schools to close and cancelled ferries after forecasts of torrential rains and strong winds. Dozens of flights at Shanghai's two airports were cancelled or delayed, and organisers of the women's World Cup being held in the city were forced to reschedule some matches.
However, the storm began to weaken later in the day and was downgraded to a tropical storm after it tore into the coast south of Shanghai before dawn.
One Shanghai man was electrocuted when he stepped in a puddle electrified by a light box in the northern part of the city, the Shanghai Daily reported.
The storm destroyed 669 houses and disrupted power to more than 100 communities, according to information from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
State television carried pictures of flooded streets and fields and soldiers evacuating residents from their inundated houses.
One worker was reported killed and another seriously injured as the fringe of the typhoon lashed Taiwan on Tuesday, knocking down scaffolding at a highway construction site in Taipei, Taiwan's Disaster Relief Centre reported.
Wipha, which is a woman's name in Thai, was forecast to continue moving northwards along the Chinese coast and affect most of North Korea and parts of northeastern China today and tomorrow, meteorologists said.
The storm has caused estimated economic losses of 6.6 billion yuan (€630 million) in Zhejiang and Fujian, as rivers and reservoirs overflowed. Thousands of dyke breaches were reported, Xinhua said.