16 killed as typhoon slams China

Shanghai (China): A typhoon that battered south and east China has killed 16 people and left four missing.

In Vietnam 27 fishermen remained missing at sea as Typhoon Chanchu — the strongest typhoon on record to enter the South China Sea in the month of May — left a trail of destruction in several countries.

The typhoon, which brought heavy rain and winds up to 170 kilometers per hour, made landfall between the Chinese cities of Shantou and Xiamen and worked its way up the coast early on Thursday.

Eight people died in Guangdong province, and the other eight in Fujian, which lies opposite Taiwan. The storm triggered house collapses and landslides in Guangdong's Shantou city.

In Vietnam, the National Committee for Search and Rescue said three ships and 27 fishermen were still unaccounted for after the storm.

Authorities re-established radio contact on Thursday with another six ships carrying more than 90 people and their crews were safe.

The weather in Shanghai, China's commercial and financial hub, improved on Friday as the typhoon weakened, after bringing heavy rain and gusting winds in what officials said was the season's earliest typhoon to affect the city in 80 years.

In Taiwan, the central weather bureau lifted land and sea warnings on Thursday night, but the storm there caused agricultural losses totaling $5 million.

Chanchu, which killed at least 37 people when it swept across the Philippines last weekend, had forced the evacuation of more than one million people in China and the cancellation of flights and ferries.