Typhoon Maemi Weakens to Tropical Storm After Taiwan, China Impact

_{Photo: Reuters}

Tropical Storm Gaemi brought rain to central China on Saturday as it moved inland after making landfall as a typhoon on the country's east coast Thursday night.

The storm knocked down trees, flooded streets, and damaged crops in China, but there were no reports of casualties or major damage. In Taiwan, Gaemi caused eight deaths before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life occurred in the Philippines, where Gaemi didn't strike directly but exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains. The death toll in the Philippines has reached 34, authorities said Friday. The typhoon caused landslides and severe flooding, stranding people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

Gaemi weakened to a tropical storm since coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province but is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei, and Henan provinces.

In Fujian province, about 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged, with economic losses estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Taiwan, residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan. Some towns remained inundated with waist-deep water.

Eight people died, several struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 850 people were injured, and one person was missing, according to the emergency operations center.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south on Friday, President Lai Ching-te commended the city’s efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of 20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

A cargo ship sank off the coast near Kaohsiung Harbor during the typhoon, and the captain’s body was later pulled from the water, the Central News Agency said. Several other ships were beached by the storm.

In the Philippines, at least 34 people died, mostly due to flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains intensified by the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — as it passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier in the week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts to deliver food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people might not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.