Typhoon Lekima death toll reaches 33 in China
China's ninth typhoon this year is expected to make a second landing along the coastline in Shandong province, prompting more flight cancellations and the closure of some expressways.
Rescue workers evacuate stranded residents with a bulldozer on a flooded street after typhoon Lekima hit Taizhou, Zhejiang province, China August 11, 2019.
The death toll has topped 30 from a powerful typhoon that hit China's east coast south of Shanghai.
China's emergency broadcasting network said Sunday that 33 people had died and 16 were still missing after Typhoon Lekima made landfall early on Saturday in the eastern province of Zhejiang with winds gusting to 187 km (116 miles) per hour, causing travel chaos with more than 3,200 flights cancelled and rail operations suspended.
Rescue workers used rubber dinghies to evacuate people stranded in their homes as swift currents swept by.
The Ministry of Emergency Management said that more than one million people had been evacuated in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and the financial hub of Shanghai due to the typhoon. Some 110,000 people were housed in shelters.
Most of the victims were in a village in Zhejiang province. A landslide triggered by the storm backed up a river, inundating homes and killing at least 23 people.
The other victims were elsewhere in Zhejiang, along with one death reported in neighbouring Anhui province.
Lekima has been downgraded to a tropical storm but is still expected to dump heavy rain on China as it moves up the Pacific coast.
It has already damaged more than 189,000 hectares of crops and 36,000 homes in Zhejiang, provincial authorities said, estimating the economic losses at $2.35 billion (16.6 billion yuan), the state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday.
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