The death toll from Typhoon Rammasun in the Philippines rose to 94 — with six missing — as another storm brought rains to the ravaged areas, authorities said yesterday.
The reports of fatalities came in as repairmen struggled to restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of households who have been without power since the storm hit last week.
“The majority of the fatalities are from falling debris and trees while many of the missing are from boats that went out to sea,” despite the storm, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council spokeswoman Mina Marasigan said.
Photo: Reuters
The typhoon has since blown to southern China, but a new storm, named Matmo, was packing gusts of 150kph and worsening rainfall in places affected by Rammasun, she said.
Manila Electric Co, the country’s largest power distributor, said more than 400,000 homes in the Manila area were still experiencing outages since the first typhoon of the year hit on Wednesday.
There were no immediate reports of damage from Typhoon Matmo, which is expected to pass over the northern end of the main Philippine island of Luzon tomorrow, the government weather station said.
CHINA
Meanwhile, Rammasun, the strongest typhoon to hit southern China in four decades has killed 18 people, the government said yesterday.
The typhoon killed nine people and left five missing after hitting Hainan Island on Friday, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement.
Nine others died later in the Guangxi region as the storm plowed into China 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 216kph, with the storm knocking down power lines and damaging buildings, Xinhua said.
Authorities in southern China ordered the highest level of alert — red — on Saturday and suspended hundreds of buses, trains and flights across the region.
Television pictures yesterday showed waterlogged roads and heavy rain in Yunnan Province. Online pictures showed uprooted trees, destroyed crops and deserted, rain-soaked streets across much of southern China.
The storm has since been downgraded “as it is abating and affecting fewer Chinese localities,” Xinhua said.
All the airports on Hainan had reopened yesterday, as ferry, rail and bus services resumed, it said.
Meanwhile, China’s National Meteorological Centre was warning that downpours triggered by the typhoon were expected in northern parts of China in the coming days.
Additional reporting by AP
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese