Typhoon Fanapi Death Toll Hits 70

Rescuers combing the mud-slide debris found more than a dozen bodies Friday, bringing the death toll of typhoon Fanapi to 70 in south China's Guangdong Province, while 65 people remain missing, local disaster relief authorities said.

The bodies were recovered after work crews entered towns cut off by mud-slides such as Magui Township in Maoming City, the provincial flood control authorities said.

Helicopters were dispatched Friday to send relief goods--bottled water, food, and tents, to floods-isolated areas in the hardest-hit counties of Gaozhou, Xinyi and Yangchun, the authorities said.

About ten tons of goods have been delivered on Friday.

By 6 p.m. Friday, about 99,500 people in Guangdong were evacuated for the Fanapi-brought disasters. Some 3,765 houses collapsed, 42,190 hectares of farmland were damaged, and the economic loss reached 2.4 billion yuan ($358 million), latest official data show.

Typhoon Fanapi, the 11th and strongest typhoon that hit China this year, landed in Fujian Province at 7 a.m. Monday, but wreaked most havoc in Guangdong, which neighbors Fujian on the south.

No casualties have been reported in Fujian.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2010)