Typhoon kills 23 in China

BEIJING, May 19 (Reuters) A typhoon that battered south and east China killed 23 people and left four missing, state media said today.

Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest typhoon on record to enter the South China Sea in May, the start of the typhoon season, left a trail of destruction through several countries, killing at least 37 people in the Philippines last weekend.

The typhoon, which brought heavy rain and winds up to 170 km per hour made landfall between the Chinese cities of Shantou and Xiamen and worked its way up the coast early yesterday.

Eight people died in Guangdong province and 15 in Fujian, which lies opposite Taiwan, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The storm triggered house collapses and landslides in Shantou in Guangdong.

In Fujian, most of the dead were killed in landslides, including at least four children, Xinhua said.

In Vietnam, a fisheries official from the central province of Quang Ngai said 27 fishermen earlier listed as missing were safe but their three ships had sunk.

All 94 Vietnamese fishermen from the province who were caught in the typhoon have taken shelter on a Chinese island, he said.

''We have asked the Foreign Ministry to contact China to make arrangements so the fishermen can soon return,'' he told Reuters.

The weather in Shanghai, China's commercial and financial hub, improved today as the typhoon weakened, after bringing heavy rain and gusting winds in what officials said was the season's earliest typhoon to affect the city in 80 years.

In Taiwan, the central weather bureau lifted land and sea warnings late yesterday, but the storm there caused agricultural losses totalling T8.88 million taiwanese dollars.

Chanchu had forced the evacuation of more than 1 million people in China and the cancellation of flights and ferries.

Typhoons, drawing strength from warm water, roar into China from the South China Sea every year between May and September, losing power once they make landfall unless they veer back out to sea.

REUTERS SHB RN1453