Typhoon lashes southeast China, killing 30

NINGDE, China, Aug 11 (Reuters) The strongest typhoon to strike China for half a century killed at least 30 people and many others were missing, the official Xinhua news agency said early today as the storm weakened and moved inland.

Typhoon Saomai tore into Cangnan County in eastern China's Zhejiang province yesterday after authorities relocated 1 million people in the densely populated commercial province, Xinhua said.

Two people were also killed and 12 missing in Fuding in neighbouring Fujian province, where 620,000 people were evacuated, it said.

''Because transport and communications have been cut, the number and identity of the dead and missing is still being established,'' the agency said. The missing included eight Taiwanese sailors on two ships that capsized, earlier reports said.

In Cangcan, 1,000 houses were blown over and 80 people were injured, with many telephone and power lines severed.

The typhoon landed with winds of 216 km (135 mph) per hour -- more powerful than a typhoon that hit Zhejiang in August 1956, triggering a storm surge that killed more than 3,000 people.

In Ningde, near to Cangcan, skies were clearing and winds had eased by this morning. A highway to Cangcan was still closed, and abandoned cars lay in ditches by the roadway. The tops of trees on surrounding hills had been snapped by powerful winds.

Saomai was the eighth storm to hit China this year, Xinhua said. Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) had graded Saomai a maximum-category 5 ''super'' typhoon, but reduced that to category 4 as it made landfall, the same category as Hurricane Katrina which devastated the US Gulf coast last year.

The greater Wenzhou area, which includes Cangnan and is home to 7.4 million people, declared a state of emergency.

Wenzhou authorities said late yesterday that economic losses to the area -- a trading and manufacturing centre -- could amount to 2.3 billion yuan (288 million dollars).

The typhoon is moving towards Jiangxi province, which was bracing for heavy storms and flooding, the China Meteorological Administration said on its Web site yesterday.

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