Peoples Daily (China), Aug. 14, 2004

At least 115 people were killed and more than 1,800 injured when Typhoon Rananim ripped through East China's Zhejiang Province, causing widespread destruction.

One of the strongest storms in years and the 14th this year, the typhoon blasted the city of Wenling on the coast of Zhejiang Province, about 135 kilometres south of Shanghai, at 8 pm on Thursday night.

Fifteen people are still missing and 185 people are seriously injured.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said 8.59 million people have been affected and the damage bill is likely to reach 15.33 billion yuan (US$1.85 billion).

Provincial officials said 42,400 homes were destroyed and 88,000 were damaged, while 271,370 hectares of farmland were ruined. Ten observation posts recorded rainfall of more than 200 millimetres.

The local authority evacuated 410,000 people from the path of the typhoon, many from rural villages.

The typhoon also killed 31,000 heads of livestock.

Rananim is the strongest typhoon in the country since 1997, when Typhoon Winnie killed 236 people and caused US$2.38-billion damage.

One of the worst-hit areas on Thursday was the city of Taizhou, which was plunged into darkness when power lines went down. The city needs at least three days to fully restore power supply, according to the local power provider.

More than 300 people were hospitalized and after four hours were still being treated by candle and torchlight.

About 50 people were hurt by falling objects, said one local doctor.

Conscious of a risk of disease, the provincial public health bureau has sent teams of doctors and disinfectants to the area.

If there is a silver lining, it is a slight alleviation of drought and high temperatures in the province.

In Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province, the temperature dropped by nearly 10 C on Friday.

About 10,000 factories in the city of Yiwu were able to resume normal operations as electricity supply recovered on Friday.

Typhoon Rananim did not pound Shanghai after all, instead heading westwards to the neighbouring Jiangxi Province, where it arrived at about 11 am on Friday.

Shanghai, East China's largest city, had been pre-warned about winds but the typhoon changed track.

By the time it hit Yushan County in the northeast of Jiangxi Province, the typhoon had weakened to a tropical storm, drenching the area, said a local meteorologist.

Qin Dahe, director of the China Meteorological Administration, released an emergency warning about Typhoon Rananim for the first time on China Central Television Station on Thursday night.

Typhoon Rananim headed inland; death toll 115 in China

The Boston Globe, Aug. 14, 2004

SHANGHAI -- The most powerful typhoon to hit China in seven years roared inland yesterday after killing 115 people and injuring more than 1,800 along the coast and leaving a path of destruction though farms, towns, and ports.

Typhoon Rananim weakened to a tropical storm after crossing into Jiangxi Province, where it brought heavy rain to China's central lakes region, meteorologists said.

Sixteen people were missing in Zhejiang Province, just south of Shanghai, where the typhoon made landfall Thursday night with winds of more than 100 miles per hour, China Central Television, or CCTV, reported.

More than 1,800 people were injured, 185 of them seriously, and 42,000 houses were destroyed and tens of thousands more were damaged, according to various government reports.

Television and newspaper pictures showed people caught in the open crouching to avoid being blown over. In the city of Wenzhou, two grabbed at a canvas-topped bicycle taxi that had been blown into the air.

CCTV showed uprooted trees, fallen billboards, and swamped bridges.

Huge waves pounded fishing ports, which were reinforced by concrete blocks, while ferries and small boats were tied up at the dock. Other boats were caught at sea, but there were no immediate reports of any lost.

Most of the deaths were caused by collapsing houses, said an official at the Zhejiang Anti-Flood Headquarters in the provincial capital of Hangzhou. "Other deaths were caused by falling electricity poles [and] people falling into rivers," said the official, who refused to give his name.

Authorities evacuated 410,000 people from the storm's path, many from rural villages where the raging wind and pounding rain destroyed huge swaths of cropland and killed thousands of livestock, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Power was knocked out in the city of Taizhou, and millions of people lost water and phone service, it said.

Rananim, which means "hello" in the Chuukese language spoken in Micronesia, hit the coastal Chinese city of Wenling on Thursday after killing one person in Taiwan. The city is about 90 miles south of Shanghai, where the storm caused little damage.

High winds and torrential rains were expected as far as 150 miles away, in the provinces of Fujian to the south and Anhui to the northwest, Xinhua said.

A series of natural disasters have severely strained China's emergency services this summer.

On Tuesday, a strong earthquake destroyed thousands of dwellings in the southwestern province of Yunnan, leaving about 126,000 people homeless. Four people were killed in the quake.