NEWS: China Hit By Typhoon Damrey

China's 18th Typhoon this year, Typhoon Damrey hit southern China last night with centre wind speeds measuring 55 metres per second. The typhoon has dwarfed all but one typhoon to hit the Island province of Hainan since 1960. Thousands of people have been evacuated from coastal villages on the Island and the mainland province of Guangdong. Experts had earlier warned authorities that Typhoon Damrey may cause huge losses to crops such as rice, rubber and banana's growing in the area.



An extraordinary hurricane/typhoon season for the northern hemisphere. It will be interesting to see if the southern hemisphere reacts as violently when it's cyclone season starts shortly. Last southern season saw at least one category five cyclone with Ingrid, although she was downgraded to a cat 4 before landfall.

An extraordinary hurricane/typhoon season for the northern hemisphere.

Not really the average for China is 24 (according to discovery channel last nite) and in the Philipines it is 30 per year.

Here is the figure for the Phillipines

www.rrcap.unep.org...

Damrey is now being hailed as the largest storm to hit the area in 30 years.

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The strongest storm to hit China's southern resort island of Hainan in decades has ploughed along its coast after killing two people and forcing more than 170,000 from their homes.

Typhoon Damrey had caused casualties, flattened houses and damaged crops on the island since it made landfall on Sunday, but the full extent of the destruction was unknown, a disaster relief official said.

"The primary threat now is strong winds, but judging from our experience in recent years, river floods are also possible if the heavy rains continue," he said by telephone.

He said more than 170,000 people had been evacuated to safety. There was no immediate word of damage to hotels.

Two people were killed in Wanning, the coastal city where the typhoon made landfall Sunday, when their houses collapsed, Xinhua news agency said.

Some 5,000 people were left stranded at the airport in the coastal city and provincial capital of Haikou after dozens of flights were cancelled.

A Haikou official said power was cut to parts of the city as well as other areas of Hainan. She did not elaborate.

www.news.com.au...
TYPHOON Damrey left at least 50 people dead and six others missing in Vietnam, the Government said today.
As many as 44 deaths occurred in flash floods in the inland province of Yen Bai, provincial flood control official Nguyen Dinh Vo said.

"We have recovered the bodies of 24 of the 44 victims and a massive search for more victims is proceeding intensively in the whole province," Mr Vo told AFP from Yen Bai City, about 200km northwest of Hanoi.

One death also occurred in each of the neighbouring mountainous provinces of Lao Cai and Phu Tho, and two each in the coastal Nam Dinh and Thanh Hoa areas.

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The typhoon, which packed winds of up to 200km/h, pummelled the Philippines, southern China and Vietnam during a week-long sweep before blowing itself out over Laos yesterday.

it seems Damfrey, although not hitting the headlines overly much was a powerful and devastating hurricane.

Nah, the wierd bit is the name. Damrey is Khmer for elephant, but Cambodia doesn't suffer from typhoons. Maybe the Khmers were finally getting a little payback for China backing the KR and VN occupying for a decade, having an elephant kick the snot out of them.

(probably shouldn't laugh at deadly typhoons, but there are some wierd rivalries and inferiority complexes in SEAsia...)

Yesteday it was 16 dead on Hainan and 1 dead in Than Hoa...