Asia-Pacific News

Typhoon Megi hits China, leaves two dozen missing in Taiwan

Oct 23, 2010, 13:48 GMT

A handout picture released by the Military News Agency on 22 October 2010 shows Ilan, northeast Taiwan, being flooded by rains brought by Typhoon Megi on 22 October 2010. EPA/MILITARY NEWS AGENCY

   Typhoon Megi made landfall Saturday in south-eastern China after proving deadly in the Philippines and Taiwan, where rescue workers were searching for 19 Chinese tourists whose bus had disappeared.

   About two dozen people were missing on Taiwan, where Megi killed at least 13 people, brought torrential rains, and caused landslides and rockslides.

   President Ma Ying-jeou inspected the Suhua Highway along the east coast where soldiers were digging for the tourist coach. The bus lost contact with its travel agency Thursday when it rolled off the road and was buried by tons of rocks and mud.

   On Saturday morning, the military found the front bumper of the coach and was trying to dig out the wreckage from the landslide.

   Much of Asia has been plagued by storms and flooding this week. A cyclone hit Myanmar's western coast, while heavy flooding in central and north-eastern Thailand had killed 32 people and threatened to inundate Bangkok.

   Megi made landfall at 12:55 pm (0455 GMT) at Zhangzhou in Fujian province with winds up to 140 kilometres per hour, China's Central Meteorological Observatory said.

   More than 270,000 people had been evacuated by early Saturday because of the storm and more people would be relocated, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

   As of Saturday morning, 79 flights into Xiamen on Fujian's south-east coast had been cancelled, the report said. Road transport was also affected.

   Earlier, fishing boats had been called in after forecasters warned that Megi could be the strongest typhoon to hit southern China in 20 years and could bring the highest tides in 200 years to some coastal areas.

   It weakened as it approached China, and continued to lose strength after landfall. It was headed north-west, travelling at 10 to 15 kph, the bureau said.

   When Megi slammed into the Philippines Monday, it was at its peak strength, packing maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 260 kph. It killed at least 26 people there.

   In Taiwan, rescuers were also trying to find the driver and the Chinese tour guide from another bus that was hit by a boulder during a landslide along the Suhua Highway, which is carved out of a mountainside along the Pacific Ocean.

   The Chinese tourists on that coach escaped by smashing the windows of the bus, officials said.

   Taiwanese victims from the storm, which dumped 115 centimetres of rain in the north-eastern county of Ilan, included nine people buried when a mudslide swept over a Buddhist temple and a policeman who was killed by a falling rock.

   In Myanmar, no deaths had been reported in Cyclone Giri, which came from the Bay of Bengal, packing winds of 160 kilometres per hour, when it hit Kyaukpyu in Rakhine state Friday night, state media reports and sources said Saturday

   It caused damage in the township and 3.7-metre waves along the coast, recalling the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, which killed at least 130,000 people.

   Thailand's flooding has affected 30 of its 77 provinces and up to 1.4 million people, prompting an outpouring of government and private aid.

   Bangkok, a city of 10 million, has been put on high alert for possible flooding Sunday and Monday from the swollen Chao Phrya River, which runs through the capital.

   As they reach the city, the floodwaters were set to run into a surge of water coming upriver from high tide in the Gulf of Thailand, Irrigation Department officials said.

   Government and private-sector sources estimated that the floods had already caused 265 million dollars in damage