Nine killed by super typhoon Soudelor in China

In Wencheng county, under the jurisdiction of Wenzhou, precipitation within 24 hours hit 645 mm, the heaviest in a hundred years, officials said. After pounding Taiwan where it claimed six lives and injured 102 people, Soudelor made a landfall in Fujian Province and moved from there to neighbouring Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, and has weakened.

Even before the storm made landfall, strong winds caused power outages to more than 1.41 million household in the province, Xinhua said.

In the China province of Zhejiang, nine people were killed and three others were missing the AP stated.

A window of a building is broken by strong wind in Xiamen, in east China’s Fujian province.

About 1.36 million people in the city were affected by the typhoon, with a direct economic loss of 3.83 billion yuan (617 million U.S. dollars). Soudelor reached peak intensity late on Monday with winds near 290 kph (180 mph) making it the strongest tropical cyclone anywhere on the planet so far this year.

Authorities in southeast China evacuated about 163,000 people and ordered around 32,000 ships back to port ahead of the typhoon, Xinhua reported.

In the provincial capital of Fuzhou, much of the downtown area was waterlogged.

Soudelor left six people dead in Taiwan, where it ripped up trees and triggered landslides, damaging electricity lines and knocking out power to a record four million households.

Prior to targeting Taiwan and China, the center of Soudelor passed directly over the island of Saipan to the north of Guam with Category 2 hurricane-force winds on Sunday night.

Nearly half a million homes were still without power Sunday, Taiwan Power Co. said, as blocked roads hampered efforts to restore supplies in some areas.

Other casualties included a firefighter who was killed and another injured after being hit by a drunken driver as they attempted to move a fallen tree in the island’s south.

Among the victims were an eight-year-old girl and her mother who were swept out to sea.

An aerial view shows a flooded town in Pingyang county after typhoon Soudelor caused floods and mudslides, in Zhejiang province, China, on Sunday.

Three airports in the province were closed, with more than 530 flights canceled.

It’s now China’s turn to take a pummeling, with Soudelor making landfall Saturday night in Putian city, in the nation’s southern Fujian province.

A motorcyclist rides past a damaged roof as typhoon Soudelor hits Taipei on August 8, 2015.