Effective preparations and accurate weather forecasts greatly
reduced the number of casualties caused by typhoon Wipha, Zheng
Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA),
said on Thursday.
"Up to now only five people have died from landslides triggered
by the heavy rain. The number of casualties is rare in history,"
said Zheng.
A man in Dongtou County,
Zhejiang Province, ties up a tree to guard against typhoon
Wipha.
The fact that the central government has paid great attention to
natural disasters was one of the reasons for the few casualties,
while meteorological authorities stepped up forecasts to allow
local governments to have time to evacuate people, Zheng added.
A total of 2.67 million people in Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanghai and
Jiangsu had been relocated by Wednesday, said the Ministry of Civil
Affairs. The typhoon destroyed more than 9,600 houses and damaged
42,000 others.
In Zhejiang alone, 1.79 million people were evacuated before
Wipha struck, the largest mass evacuation in the history of the
province. More than half a million were evacuated because their
houses were in poor condition.
Typhoon Wipha hit Wenzhou, in Zhejiang Province, at 2:30?AM
Wednesday but was later downgraded to a tropical storm.
It turned into a temperate depression at noon on Thursday in the
Yellow Sea, and was still weakening, according to the Liaoning
Meteorological Observatory.
(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2007)
