Typhoon Utor Kills More Than 100
There are more deaths in Asia, in the aftermath of a killer typhoon.
Government officials say at least 112 people have been killed in the Philippines by Typhoon Utor. Dozens more are still missing.
Utor, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm, also killed one person in Taiwan and at least three people in China. Nearly 12,000 homes in the Philippines were damaged or destroyed and there's been extensive flood damage in China.
Meanwhile, thousands of passengers were stranded at the Hong Kong airport Saturday as authorities tried to clear a backlog of flights caused by the storm and a labor action by Cathay Pacific pilots.
As the storm moved into Guangxi province in China, authorities mobilized more than 10,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians to strengthen dams and battle severe floods, China News Service said.
The storm struck the heavily populated southern Guangdong province, razing 1,400 houses and savaging farmland. Property losses amounted to about $2.6 billion, the official Xinhua news agency reported late Friday.
Crops were devastated and heavy damage was reported to fisheries, roads, power lines, dams and irrigation facilities, an official with the Flood Relief Command of Shanwei said in Guangdong.
Typhoon Utor, one of the most powerful storms in the region in years, ripped through the northern Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan Wednesday and Thursday.
It weakened to a tropical storm with winds of 68 miles per hour as it reached land at Shanwei, about 75 miles northeast of Hong Kong.
The storm closed down Hong Kong, a major Asian financial and transport hub of seven million people, until well past midday.
Banks, schools and financial markets were shut, public transport was limited and most workers stayed home. About 150 people sought refuge in temporary shelters.
The stock exchange, which handles Hong Kong and China shares, was shut all day.
The Hong Kong observatory lowered its number eight typhoon warning for gale force winds and replaced it with the number three signal, indicating strong winds were still expected.
Utor is the region's second typhoon in two weeks following Typhoon Chebi, which swept through Taiwan and China killing at least 87 people and injuring 116. Chebi also caused an estimated T$635 million in damage to Taiwan's agriculture sector.
A typhoon is what a tropical cyclone is called when it occurs over the western Pacific; "hurricane" describes the same-phenomena elsewhere. It is a system with a center of extremely low atmospheric pressure circulated by bands of moisture.
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