In this Saturday, July 19, 2014 photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a vehicle sits under a collapsed building after landfall of typhoon Rammasun in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province. The strongest typhoon to hit southern China in four decades has killed more than a dozen people, the government said Sunday.
Associated Press
BEIJING - The strongest typhoon to hit southern China in four decades has killed 18 people, the government said Sunday, while in the Philippines the death toll from the storm's earlier destruction rose to 94.
Typhoon Rammasun killed nine people and left five missing after hitting Hainan island on Friday off China's southern coast, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement. Nine others died later in the Guangxi region as the storm plowed into the mainland on its way north to Vietnam.
The typhoon is the strongest to hit southern China in 41 years, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Wind speeds reached 216 kilometers (130 miles) per hour, with the storm knocking down power lines and damaging buildings, Xinhua said.
Authorities in southern China ordered the highest level of alert and suspended hundreds of buses, trains and flights across the region.
The typhoon had wreaked havoc earlier in the week in the northern Philippines, leaving 94 people dead.
Rescuers try to remove a steal frame from a collapsed concrete roof which has killed and injured a number of people after they took shelter during heavy rains in Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong province Friday, July 18, 2014. A powerful typhoon hit the southern Chinese island of Hainan on Friday after killing tens people in the Philippines.
Associated Press
Sea gypsies known as "Badjaos" rummage through the debris after Typhoon Rammasun struck the coastal village of Bajaoan, in Batangas city, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Manila, Philippines Thursday, July 17, 2014. Typhoon Rammasun (locally known as Glenda) ravaged central and northern Philippines, including this province, leaving dozens of people dead, knocking out power in many areas and damaging agriculture and infrastructure.
Associated Press