The death toll from Typhoon Kaemi has risen to 32 on the Chinese
mainland including six at a military barracks in east China's Jiangxi Province, with at least 65 others
missing, confirmed local flood control sources on Friday noon.
Officials with the disaster relief office of east China's Anhui
Province said, since Tuesday, the province has recorded four deaths
from Kaemi, with three others seriously injured and another five
missing.
By 8:00 AM on Friday morning, rough statistics showed
approximately 21,000 hectares of farm land had been affected by the
typhoon, with 2,695 houses collapsed and 26,100 people
evacuated.
Earlier reports said Typhoon Kaemi, the fifth of the year, made
landfall at 11:45 PM on July 24 at Taitung of Taiwan island,
entered into the Tianwan Straits at around 4:00 AM. on July 25 and
hit Jinjiang of Fujian at 3:50 PM the same day.
The typhoon has brought continuous rainstorm and triggered
landslides and floods as it swept the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi and Hunan. Regions
affected also included Anhui. It has forced more than 700,000
people from these provinces to move to safer places.
Kaemi, meaning "ant" in Korean, weakened to tropical storm at
12:00 PM on Tuesday and then to tropical low pressure at 5:00 on
Wednesday in Pinghe County, east China's Fujian Province.
(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2006)