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Updated at 7:58 a.m., Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Typhoon floods streets, but weakens as it hits China

By ELAINE KURTENBACH
Associated Press

 

Vehicles are submerged in floodwaters resulting from Typhoon Wipha in Rui'an city, in east China's Zhejiang Province. Wipha flooded streets and destroyed thousands of homes as it swept through eastern China today, but the storm eventually weakened.

AP Photo/Xinhua, Huang Shengang

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SHANGHAI, China — Typhoon Wipha weakened Wednesday as it swept through eastern China, bringing torrential rains that destroyed thousands of houses, flooded streets and disrupted air traffic in the country's financial center of Shanghai.

Authorities in Shanghai and nearby provinces evacuated some 2 million people, mostly from coastal regions, boats and unsafe housing. One man was electrocuted in the city, local media reported.

Local meteorological officials had warned Wipha could be the most destructive storm to hit eastern China in a decade, but it was not as bad as expected.

It was downgraded to a tropical storm after it tore into the coast south of Shanghai before dawn. It passed to the west of the city later in the day, as clouds whipped past its many skyscrapers.

The storm destroyed thousands of houses and disrupted power to more than 100 communities, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the Ministry of Civil Affairs and provincial officials.

It said preliminary estimates put the damage at $638 million and likely to rise.

Shanghai, a city of 20 million, closed schools, ferries and other transport links following forecasts of torrential rains and strong winds.

The Meteorological Bureau in Zhejiang province reported that Wipha was downgraded into a tropical storm after it made landfall and its sustained wind speeds dropped below 74 mph.

By evening, Wipha was passing to the northwest of Shanghai, with wind speeds of 55 mph, weather reports said.

State television showed flooded streets, fields and homes. Rescue workers handed out packets of instant noodles and ferried residents stranded by local flooding to higher ground.

The storm hit land near Cangnan in southern Zhejiang province, some 250 miles south of Shanghai.

Organizers of the women's World Cup rescheduled Wednesday's Shanghai match between Norway and Ghana to Thursday and moved it to the neighboring city of Hangzhou. Three Wednesday games were rescheduled for Thursday, to allow them to be played simultaneously with other final group matches.

On Tuesday, one worker was reported killed and another seriously injured as the fringe of the typhoon lashed Taiwan, knocking down scaffolding at a highway construction site in Taipei, Taiwan's Disaster Relief Center reported.