Typhoon Utor Kills 37 in Philippines
By MARCOS CALO MEDINA, Associated Press Writer
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Typhoon Utor swirled over southern Taiwan and the
northern Philippines on Thursday killing 37, flooding homes, triggering
mudslides and stranding hikers before barreling toward China.Separately, in
Vietnam, 22 people were killed in flooding related to Typhoon
Durian.Philippine taxi driver Reynaldo Duque took his pregnant wife and two
daughters from his hut to his parent's nearby stone house to escape the
storm. Instead of a refuge, it became their grave.A massive mudslide roared
down the mountain, burying the house, Duque's family, and his parents.They
were six of the 36 people who died in the typhoon in the Philippines, where
another 16 were missing and an estimated 25,000 were forced from their homes,
the northern Regional Disaster Management Center said.Hardest hit by Utor,
which means ``squall'' in the language spoken on the Marshall Islands, were
the mountainous provinces in the northern Philippines, where Duque and his
family died.In Taiwan, where the outer edges of the storm hit the south, one
person was killed when he was swept into the ocean near the city of Hualien.
Six others were injured, disaster official Wu Chiao-wen said.The typhoon,
packing maximum winds of 74 mph and gusts of up to 92 mph, appeared to be
losing strength as it whirled across the South China Sea, said the Joint
Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.By late Thursday afternoon,
Utor's eye was centered about 230 miles southeast of Hong Kong and it was
expected to sweep into China by early Friday, the center said.The typhoon's
center never hit Taiwan, but the storm's 217 mile perimeter - one of the
largest to hit the island in 20 years - brought heavy winds and rains that
caused flash floods and landslides in southern Taiwan.Losses from flooded
farm lands and washed away fisheries were estimated to reach $2 million, the
Council of Agriculture said.Taiwanese officials said 11 high school students,
who had been missing, had been located at a mountain in eastern Ilan.
Rescuers were trying to contact 49 other hikers.Television footage showed
some of the hikers - visibly weary but unharmed and dry - waiting at a local
police station to be sent back to their schools.Rescuers were also trying to
locate the Taiwanese fishing boat ``Sheng Yu Hsing,'' which sent out a
distress call Wednesday about 75 miles east of the extreme northern
Philippine island of Babuyan, the Philippine Coast Guard said. Two Taiwanese
and five Chinese fishermen were on the boat.In Hong Kong, officials issued a
land and sea warning, although weather was calm. Businesses remained open,
but officials warned people to secure scaffolding at building projects and
ordered fishermen to put their boats into typhoon shelters.Taiwan's biggest
airline, China Airlines, canceled seven flights to Hong Kong and the
territory's largest carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, said it would likely
have to cancel or delay up to 20 incoming flights.Cathay Pacific also warned
that some long-haul inbound flights might have to land in other cities, and
that flights leaving Hong Kong could experience significant delays.Meanwhile,
in Vietnam, Typhoon Durian dumped up to 17 inches of rain between Monday and
Wednesday, submerging large areas of some northern provinces, the National
Weather Forecast Center said.Seventeen people were killed in Thai Nguyen
province, including six who died when a landslide buried their homes, said Do
Nam Cuong of the provincial floods and storms control bureau. The other 11,
including a volunteer rescue worker, were washed away by raging flood
waters.In the neighboring province of Tuyen Quang, four people were killed
and five others were still missing, authorities there said.The floods also
killed one person in the northern province of Vinh Phuc, officials said.
<A HREF="http://grayfoxtropical.8m.net/">Click here: Gray Fox Tropical</A>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
=========================================================
STORMREPORTS Email List - For WeatherMatrix Members Only
Set Yourself to "DIGEST" For ONE EMAIL PER DAY!
TO UNSUBSCRIBE: stormreports-unsubscribe{at}casi-internal
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, SUSPEND, CHANGE EMAIL, OR DIGEST:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stormreports/join
RULES:
http://www.weathermatrix.net/members/casisr.html
===================================================
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 01 2001 - 13:05:11 EDT