By
The Associated Press
BEIJING - Typhoon Bilis churned into coastal China yesterday, bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds but little of the destruction it left across Taiwan, where it wrecked homes and killed 11 people.
There were no reports of injuries or serious damage in China's Fujian province, where Bilis made landfall yesterday afternoon before dying out further inland, said a government spokesman in the port city of Xiamen, who gave only his surname, Xie.
Municipal workers were keeping watch through the night for flooding and other damage from the torrential rains expected to follow the typhoon, the spokesman said.
Xiamen had prepared for a major storm, giving city workers the day off as Bilis moved in. The Xiamen ferry service and a local airline shut down operations, television stations and the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.
Boats were ordered into port along the Fujian coast, and airports in Xiamen and the provincial capital, Fuzhou, closed for part of the day, television reports said. TV footage showed signboards blown down and city residents negotiating streets in the wind and rain.
A government statement, read on Chinese television, expressed "deepest condolences" to victims of the typhoon in Taiwan, where 11 people were killed, 80 injured and thousands stranded in makeshift shelters. The statement, issued by the government's Central Office for Taiwan Affairs, was markedly different in tone from the usual blustery Chinese pronouncements on Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.
Among the dead in Taiwan were seven farmers and a 6-year-old girl buried in a mudslide in the remote Taiwanese mountain village of Jenai. A woman was killed by downed electrical wires and a construction worker died when a retaining wall collapsed in a suburb of the capital, Taipei. Another man died after he was hit by a door knocked down by strong winds.
Rescuers searched late into last night for a missing man last seen floating down a raging river in Taiwan's central Nantou county clinging to a piece wood for support. Officials were also searching for a doctor reported missing during a hike Tuesday.
Some 250 houses collapsed in Taiwan's eastern Hualien county and more than 600,000 homes lost power during the height of the storm. Tens of thousands of people across the island were moved into typhoon shelters set up by the government.
The typhoon flooded rice paddies and fruit farms in Taiwan, causing $48 million in agricultural damage, officials said.
Local and international airlines canceled 76 flights to southern Taiwan and abroad. In southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung harbor - one of the world's busiest ports - remained closed as waves battered the sea walls.
Also yesterday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 struck Hualien, but no damage was reported.
Bilis hit southern Taiwan late Tuesday night with winds of up to 118 mph, according to Taiwanese authorities. However, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, said Bilis had sustained winds as high as 161 mph, making it equivalent to a Category Five hurricane capable of causing catastrophic damage.
Forecasters said the discrepancy in wind speed was partially the result of Taiwan measuring the storm's intensity over a longer period.
Bilis was the second strong typhoon to hit Taiwan this year. Last month, Typhoon Kai Tak swept through southern Taiwan with winds of up to 93 mph, leaving one dead and five injured.
