Typhoon Wipha spared Shanghai and Hangzhou the brunt of its fury but still caused extensive damage in the east coast with torrential rains and strong winds.
Five people were killed and three were missing in the aftermath of the typhoon, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said last night, without giving details of the casualties.
Xinhua reported earlier that one died when his house collapsed, and three were injured in ZhejiangProvince as Wipha landed in Cangnan, Wenzhou, at 2:30 am with winds of up to 160 kph.
It destroyed 669 houses, disrupted power supplies to 1,867 villages, and affected about 5 million people, causing losses worth 2.9 billion yuan ($380 million) in Zhejiang.
Forecast to be potentially the most destructive typhoon in a decade, Wipha forced the evacuation of more than 2.6 million people in East China.
At 3 pm yesterday, the typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm and was moving northwest to AnhuiProvince.
"The wind was at its full force between 2:30 am and 3:30 am. I heard loud thumps as objects whipped by, the wind pounded the house and the ground," Lin Dezan, a villager in Cangnan, told China Daily.
"The house was in total darkness because the wind had knocked down utility poles."
At about 5 am, Lin stepped out of his home, he saw debris of wooden sticks, broken roof tiles and bamboo structures used for seaweed breeding. "It was a total mess."
Cangnan, where Typhoon Saomai left 153 people dead last year, saw 129,978 people evacuated on the eve of Wipha's landfall.
In Shanghai, schools remained closed yesterday, at least 71 flights delayed or postponed, and ferry crossings and other transport links disrupted.
Residents in the financial metropolis appeared composed yesterday, as companies allowed their employees to leave the office earlier.
"It (preparations for the typhoon) seems to be a bit of an overreaction," said George Patton, 38, an Australian lawyer living in Shanghai.
In FujianProvince, about 486,900 people were affected. The typhoon destroyed some 4,700 houses, forced 431,000 people to evacuate, and ruined 33,550 hectares of crops, inflicting losses of more than 1 billion yuan ($133 million).
(China Daily 09/20/2007 page 1)
Vocabulary:
utility poles：多用电杆
composed：镇静的
（英语点津 Linda 编辑）
About the broadcaster:
Marc Checkley is a freelance journalist and media producer from Auckland, New Zealand. Marc has had an eclectic career in the media/arts, most recently working as a radio journalist for NewstalkZB, New Zealand’s leading news radio network, as a feature writer for Travel Inc, New Nutrition Business (UK) and contributor for Mana Magazine and the Sunday Star Times. Marc is also a passionate arts educator and is involved in various media/theatre projects in his native New Zealand and Singapore where he is currently based. Marc joins the China Daily with support from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
