Chinese storm claims 48 lives, cuts rail links

BEIJING, July 16 (Reuters) At least 48 people died in rainstorms and floods as Typhoon Bilis scythed across southeast China, the official Xinhua news agency reported today.

It said emergency workers rescued 11 seamen yesterday from a sinking Russian vessel in stormy seas off the Chinese coast.

Bilis ravaged the Philippines and Taiwan before hitting China on Friday. It caused widespread damage before being downgraded to a tropical storm.

Hardest hit was the inland province of Hunan, where the storm killed 39 people and destroyed more than 31,000 houses. Nine died in neighbouring Guangdong. Fujian and Zhejiang provinces reported huge economic losses but no casualties, Xinhua said.

Flooding cut the main Beijing-Guangzhou railway line, stranding 5,000 passengers at the station in Changsha, Hunan's capital.

In the city of Lechang, where the streets were under 3 m of water, more than 1,600 inmates were evacuated from the local prison, the news agency said.

In Hunan, the dam of a reservoir could collapse at any time because trees brought down by the storm were blocking the sluice gates, Xinhua said. Seven other reservoirs were in a dangerous state.

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

The storm also caused one death in southern Taiwan.

REUTERS PR RN1527