Rescue work continues as typhoon hits eastern China

Further south, in Fujian province where the typhoon made landfall on Saturday night, three people were killed by a mudslide and one was missing after being swept away by floods in Ningde, the Fujian Daily reported.

On Friday afternoon, marine police rescued 55 university students and teachers trapped on a small island where they had been attending a summer camp, after strong gales stopped ferry services, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The 14 have been killed after being washed away by flash floods or buried underneath collapsed homes or landslides, state information company Xinhua stated, citing authorities in Zhejiang province.

Two people were also killed not too far off Wenzhou, in the neighboring city of Lishui.

Accumulated rainwater was measured at four meters (13 feet) deep in some places.

In its Facebook post, the Central Taiwan Migrants Concerns said that as of August 9, the mission station still has no power and water, with intermittent Internet.

Direct economic losses totaled 560 million yuan (91.5 million U.S. dollars), according to the department.

Typhoon Soudelor then blew into Jiangxi and Anhui provinces. Hundreds of people are being housed in shelters, according to the American Red Cross.

Meanwhile in Fujian – where more than 160,000 people had been evacuated before the typhoon made landfall, 1.1 million people had been affected.

The storm downed trees, traffic lights and power lines on the island, causing more than 4 million households to lose electricity. Flights to the provincial capital Fuzhou and the city of Quanzhou have been canceled.

More than 530 flights were cancelled and 191 high-speed trains were suspended on Saturday.

“People are now able to walk past the area after our emergency fix, but it may take another three or four days for vehicles to get through”, Chiang Chien-ming, a chief road engineer at the transportation ministry, told AFP.