CHINA: Strong winds and torrential rains killed at least 32 people and injured about 100 as a typhoon ground into south China, officials and state media said yesterday.
The powerful but rapidly weakening storm dumped heavy rain on parts of Guangdong province after lashing neighbouring Hong Kong with gale force winds, injuring 22 people.
China's official Xinhua news agency said on its website, www.xinhuanet.com, that 16 migrant workers on a construction site were among those killed. It gave no details.
Typhoon Dujuan, the strongest in the region in four years, narrowly missed a direct hit on Hong Kong on Tuesday night and there were no reports of major damage.
"It came very, very close to us. It passed about 30 km away," a spokesman for the Hong Kong Observatory said.
By early yesterday it had been downgraded to a severe tropical storm.
Severe flooding and violent rainstorms were expected in coastal areas as it gradually moved west.
"A red typhoon warning signal, the second highest storm alert, was raised on Tuesday in the cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Shenzhen," a Guangdong provincial official said.
All shipping services in ports of Guangzhou and Zhuhai were suspended, state television said.
The storm cut power and water supply in city of Shanwei and in some districts of Shenzhen, directly across the border from Hong Kong.
More than 3,000 passengers were stranded in Shenzhen's airport and train station, Xinhua said.
Guangdong's meteorological observatory clocked maximum winds of 40 metres per second.
About 300 Hong Kong homes were plunged into darkness. More than 260 flights were cancelled or delayed, leaving up to 2,000 travellers stranded at the airport.
During the night, nervous residents huddled at home watching television for weather updates. Several hundred people sought refuge in temporary shelters.
The storm first hit south-eastern Taiwan on Tuesday, killing two people and cutting power to more than half a million homes. One person is still missing.
Six or seven typhoons skirt Hong Kong each year, but direct hits are rare.
In 2001, one person died when Typhoon Utor tore through the territory. - (Reuters)