1.35 mln evacuated as Muifa passes China
11:49, 9 August 2011
BEIJING. August 9. KAZINFORM Tropical storm Muifa has brushed past China's eastern coast. About 1.35 million people were evacuated as a safety precaution, according to the National Disaster Reduction Committee; Kazinform refers to Xinhuanet.
Since last Thursday, downpours and winds have battered 183 counties in China's coastal provinces Liaoning,Shandong,Jiangsu,and Zhejiang, and the economic hub of Shanghai. As of 4 pm on Monday Beijing time, the storm had toppled more than 600 houses and damaged nearly 5,000 others, causing direct economic losses of over 3 billion yuan. Muifa, the ninth typhoon to hit China this year, swirled into the East China Sea on Friday morning and weakened to a tropical storm on Sunday. Muifa made a landfall on the northwest coast of the DPRK on Monday evening, after killing four people along the west coast of South Korea.