Lightning strikes kill 82 in China

BEIJING, July 14 (Reuters) Lightning strikes killed 82 people across China in June, a Chinese newspaper reported today after several nights of violent storms in the capital, Beijing.

The death toll was recorded across 20 provinces, with 22 people killed in the eastern province of Jiangsu alone, the International Business Daily said.

It said the death toll marked an increase on June 2005, but did got give figures.

''The main reasons for the deaths are the lack of lightning avoidance measures, equipment and knowledge,'' the International Business Daily said. It did not elaborate.

Heavy summer storms have battered wide swaths of China this year, with meteorological disasters killing at least 349 people and causing economic losses of about 2.53 billion dollars in June, Xinhua reported.

The capital has been hit by severe electrical storms for successive nights, cutting power to several hundred households.

A tropical storm which caused several deaths in the Philippines swept across northern Taiwan overnight, causing mudslides, and was bearing down on the coastal Chinese province of Fujian where thousands have been evacuated in its path.

But Tropical Storm Bilis was never upgraded into a typhoon and is expected to weaken once it makes landfall.

The Taiwan port of Kaohsiung, shut down before the storm hit, has resumed operations, REUTERS SRS RAI0727