Typhoon weakens over China after leaving 22 dead, missing

A typhoon that lashed Taiwan battered the mainland with heavy rain and winds on Sunday, leaving more than a dozen people dead or missing, levelling homes and cutting power to more than a million households.

It 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. The girl’s twin sister is unaccounted for, it said.

The Associated Press reported that one firefighter was killed and another injured, not by the storm, but by a drunk driver who ran the two men down as they were attempting to remove a tree that had fallen across the road. By mid-morning, Soudelor was packing maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometres per hour.

The typhoon weakened as it moved inland toward the northwest.

Typhoon Soudelor made landfall in China’s Fujian province late Saturday night and was downgraded into a tropical storm as it moved across the region.

Typhoon Soudelor struck south-eastern China late on Saturday night and left more than a million homes the city of Putian without power.

About 645 millimeters (25 inches) of rain fell on Zhejiang’s Wenzhou city and prompted authorities to issue their second-highest rainstorm warning Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing local officials.

The Central Weather Bureau warned 16 cities and counties that they were likely to experience intense rain and powerful winds from Soudelor.

As Soudelor diminishes and turns toward the northeast, heavy rain and flooding will continue to be a problem in parts of eastern China and will spread to South Korea and a portion of Japan.

According to New Taipei City government statistics, 2,100 Wulai residents are being trapped after the only road to their villages collapsed when Soudelor swept through Taiwan Saturday.

A man carrying an umbrella passes a mangled rooftop brought down by strong winds from Typhoon Soudelor in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, August 8, 2015.

More than 300 trains linked to Fujian have been cancelled, while China’s three biggest airlines have also scrapped more than 60 domestic flights.

Even earlier than the storm made landfall, robust winds brought on energy outages to greater than 1.41 million family within the province, Xinhua stated.

President Barack Obama has declared the islands a disaster area and ordered federal aid to help the US territory.

The Pacific Every day Information reported that meals, water, dry milk, energy turbines and short-term shelter are anticipated to reach on the primary island of Saipan this weekend.