Typhoon Ramassun toll in China rises to 46

Beijing, July 22: The number of people killed by

Rammasun in

has increased to 46, officials said Tuesday.

Rammasun is the strongest typhoon to hit China in four decades amd has affected people in the southern coastal provinces of Hainan, Guangdong, Yunnan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua reported.

Nineteen deaths were reported in south China's Hainan, nine in southwest China's Guangxi, and 18 in neighbouring Yunnan.

A total of 608,000 people have been re-settled and over 240,000 are in urgent need of basic necessities.

The typhoon has damaged power and water supplies, telecommunications networks, ports and roads, and made rescue work more difficult.

Hainan, where Rammasun made its first landfall Friday afternoon, suffered the worst damage.

The typhoon destroyed about 51,000 houses and 40,600 hectares of crops, causing economic losses of over 10.8 billion yuan ($1.74 billion) in the province.

Rammasun, which first made landfall in the eastern province of Albay in the Philippines on Tuesday last week, has claimed at least 94 lives with six people still missing in that country.

IANS