Shanghai Daily News

Typhoon Haitang was downgraded to a tropical storm yesterday morning in Zhejiang Province as it moved northwest but it still left three people dead and sent more than 1.4 million others fleeing their homes in the coastal southeast.

It reached the northeast parts of Jiangxi Province about 3pm yesterday and still packed winds at speeds of up to Force 8, or 18 meters per second, late yesterday, China News Service said.

When it first slammed the mainland in Fujian's Huangqi region on Tuesday evening, wind speed topped Force 12, or 33 meters a second.

Before its attack on Jiangxi, Haitang forced more than 863,000 people in Fujian and 558,000 others in Zhejiang to flee their homes.

Zhejiang's Wenzhou bore the brunt, with authorities confirming three people were killed in the city's most severe typhoon in the past 40 years.

Strong winds and downpours toppled at least 4,795 houses and destroyed more than 460,000 hectares of crops across Wen-zhou. Downtown Wenzhou reported about 300 millimeters of rain and the town of Changchan received more than 682mm.

Some streets were submerged 4 meters deep by rain-triggered floods yesterday. On Tuesday night, more than 120,000 people were trapped in the flood in Wenzhou's Pingyang area, without access to telecommunications, power and drinking water.

The economic toll was estimated at 4.1 billion yuan (US$492 million).

In Taiwan, the death toll rose to 12, with 36 others injured.