At least 36 people have been killed and 10 others have gone
missing since typhoon Dujuan started sweeping across South China's
Guangdong Province on Tuesday night.
And more than 120 others were injured by the typhoon, the most
serious tropical storm to batter Guangdong Province in 24 years,
according to an official from the Guangdong Provincial Flood
Prevention Headquarters yesterday.
The direct economic losses caused by the typhoon, the 13th
tropical storm to strike the Chinese coastal area this year, have
been calculated at more than 2 billion yuan (US$241 million).
The port cities of Shenzhen, Huizhou, Shanwei and Shantou in
eastern coastal areas of Guangdong Province have been the hardest
hit by the typhoon over the past two days.
In the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone that borders Hong Kong, at
least 20 persons were killed and 98 others injured, including 20
seriously. Two people remain missing in the city.
A factory building which was under construction collapsed,
claiming 16 lives and injuring 20 others in Bao'an District's
Gongming Township in Shenzhen yesterday.
In another development, in Ningshaan County, Shaanxi Province,
around 6,000 students at 29 primary and middle schools could not go
to school on September 1 for the start of the new school term as
the disaster had destroyed classroom buildings.
From early yesterday morning, rain hit flood-stricken areas once
again in Shaanxi, with the wet weather due to last until September
7.
The latest statistics showed that by September 1, 67 out of
Shaanxi's 108 counties were hit by the disaster with a population
of 4.924 million, and 38 were killed and 34 disappeared in the
flood and landslide.
(China Daily September 4, 2003)
