BEIJING -
Typhoon Bilis churned into coastal China Wednesday, bringing heavy
rain and gale-force winds but little of the destruction it left
across Taiwan, where it left 11 people dead.
There were
no reports of injuries or serious damage in China's Fujian province,
where Bilis made landfall Wednesday afternoon before dying out
further inland, said a government spokesman in the port city of
Xiamen, who gave only his surname, Xie.
Municipal
workers were keeping watch through the night for flooding and
other damage from the torrential rains expected to follow the
typhoon, the spokesman said.
Xiamen had
prepared for a major storm, giving city workers the day off as
Bilis moved in. The Xiamen ferry service and a local airline shut
down operations, television stations and the state-run Chinese
news agency Xinhua reported.
Boats were
ordered into port along the Fujian coast, and airports in Xiamen
and the provincial capital, Fuzhou, closed for part of the day,
television reports said. TV footage showed signboards blown down
and city residents negotiating streets in the wind and rain.
A government
statement, read on Chinese television, expressed "deepest
condolences" to victims of the typhoon in Taiwan, where 11
people were killed, 80 injured and thousands stranded in makeshift
shelters. The statement, issued by the government's Central Office
for Taiwan Affairs, was markedly different in tone from the usual
blustery Chinese pronouncements on Taiwan, which Beijing considers
a breakaway province.
Among the
dead in Taiwan were seven farmers and a 6-year-old girl buried
in a mudslide in the remote Taiwanese mountain village of Jenai.
A woman was killed by downed electrical wires and a construction
worker died when a retaining wall collapsed in a suburb of the
capital, Taipei. Another man died after he was hit by a door knocked
down by strong winds.
Rescuers searched
late into Wednesday night for a missing man last seen floating
down a raging river in Taiwan's central Nantou county clinging
to a piece wood for support. Officials were also searching for
a doctor reported missing during a hike Tuesday.
Some 250 houses
collapsed in Taiwan's eastern Hualien county and more than 600,000
homes lost power during the height of the storm. Tens of thousands
of people across the island were moved into typhoon shelters set
up by the government.
The typhoon
flooded rice paddies and fruit farms in Taiwan, causing $48 million
in agricultural damage, officials said.
Local and
international airlines canceled 76 flights to southern Taiwan
and abroad. In southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung harbor - one of the
world's busiest ports - remained closed as waves battered the
sea walls.
Also Wednesday,
an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 struck Hualien,
but no damage was reported.
Bilis hit
southern Taiwan late Tuesday night with winds of up to 118 mph,
according to Taiwanese authorities. However, the Joint Typhoon
Warning Center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, said Bilis had sustained
winds as high as 161 mph, making it equivalent to a Category Five
hurricane capable of causing catastrophic damage.
Forecasters
said the discrepancy in wind speed was partially the result of
Taiwan measuring the storm's intensity over a longer period.
Bilis was
the second strong typhoon to hit Taiwan this year. Last month,
Typhoon Kai Tak swept through southern Taiwan with winds of up
to 93 mph, leaving one dead and five injured.
|
