Typhoon death toll rises to 79 after hitting China

MANILA, July 15 (Reuters) The death toll from Typhoon Bilis rose to 79 today after it swept through the Philippines, Taiwan and then China, where it caused widespread damage before being downgraded to a tropical storm.

Disaster officials put the number of dead at 28 in the Philippines, where more bodies were found today in swollen rivers and creeks and dug from dozens of minor landslides.

Hardest hit in China was southern Hunan province, where the storm killed 36 people, injured 349 and left 100 missing, provincial officials said in a statement on the local government Web site.

China Central Television put the Hunan toll lower, with 29 killed and more than 50 missing.

Nearby Guangdong province reported three people dead and nine missing, the official Xinhua news agency said. State Radio reported one person killed in Ningxia autonomous region, far inland, in torrential rains related to Bilis.

In China's southeastern province of Fujian, 10 people were killed and 27 injured when a bus rammed into a guardrail and slid into a valley, Xinhua said yesterday. Police said heavy rains associated with Bilis contributed to the accident.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese in the typhoon's path were evacuated before it wreaked more than 100 million dollars of damage and toppled hundreds of houses in Fujian and Zhejiang province further up the east coast.

The storm also caused one death in Taiwan's Pingtung county, at the Southern end of the island.

Manila's National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said nine people were still missing after mudslides and floods on the main Luzon island.

''We're still feeling the effects of the southwest monsoon,'' said Glenn Rabonza, NDCC executive director.

''We continue to get reports from the field on casualties and damages as the weather improves. Many communities in the north remained isolated by landslides and floods.'' The disaster agency said about 3 million dollars worth of agriculture -- including rice, corn, coconut and vegetables --, public infrastructures and houses were destroyed or damaged in three days of rains since Wednesday.

The capital, Manila, was still cloudy on Saturday with strong wind gusts as hundreds of people displaced by flooding started returning to their homes.

About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines each year, mostly during the rainy season that lasts from mid-May until September.

REUTERS AK PM1756