A powerful typhoon lashed South Korea's southwest coast yesterday, leaving at least five people dead or missing, officials said.
Typhoon Ewiniar was moving at a speed of 37kph after hitting the island of Jindo, packing winds up to 122kph, the Korea Meteorological Administration said.
The typhoon dumped up to 15cm of rain, flooding homes and grounding flights, it said.
PHOTO: AFP
Four people including an 87-year-old woman in the southern city of Cheongdo were found dead and another was missing in Sangju, all after being swept away by flash floods or rain-swollen streams, the government's central disaster center said.
"The toll may increase as we are receiving unconfirmed reports of casualties," a center official said.
Many schools were closed in South Jeolla and North Jeolla provinces, and more than 30,000 vessels were shore-bound or holed up at shelters, he said.
"The typhoon weakened slightly after hitting the southwest coast. It will cut through western and central provinces before reaching the East Sea [Sea of Japan] tomorrow morning," meteorological center official Kuk Hyun-hun said. Ewiniar was the year's third typhoon.
China evacuated more than 7,600 people from exposed areas along its eastern coast due to fears about Ewiniar but despite it missing the country floods and landslides have still killed more than 30 people across the country in recent days, state media said yesterday.
Seven oilfield workers were killed in a landslide in the northwestern province of Gansu on Thursday, the China Daily said.
Sixteen died in the southwestern province of Yunnan on Thursday and Friday and a landslide in the suburbs of Taiyuan, capital of the northern province of Shanxi, killed 11 migrant workers in an iron mine on Saturday.
Meanwhile in India monsoon rains have inundated large parts of Uttar Pradesh state, and 21 people were killed in drownings, house collapses and lightning strikes over the weekend, officials said yesterday.
In neighboring Bangladesh, at least 12 people have died in landslides or after being hit by lighting over the past two days in heavy rainstorms in the nation's east.
Across India, at least 250 people have been killed since the start of the monsoon season last month.
The heavy rains have caused power outages for several hours across Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with 170,000 million people, including in the state capital, Lucknow.
Last week, more than 80 people died in extreme monsoon weather in western and eastern India and normal life in large parts of Mumbai ground to a halt for two days as downpours hit India's financial hub.
In Uttar Pradesh, people slammed the government for not undertaking measures to prevent waterlogging and flooding.
"It seems officials are only interested in releasing funds every year so they can pilfer while we have to suffer year after year on account of nature's fury," said Ram Chander, a laborer living on the outskirts of Lucknow.
Uttar Pradesh Relief Commissioner Renuka Kumar said though the state had an annual budget of 3 billion rupees (US$65 million) to deal with natural disasters, it had only spent 800 million rupees.
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