Typhoon Saomai, the strongest storm to hit the Chinese mainland in 50 years, has left at least 98 people dead and 149 missing in east China, according to local government sources.

Eighty-one of the dead and 11 of the missing were in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, where 2.1 million people were affected and 18,000 houses were destroyed, said the civil affairs bureau of Wenzhou on Friday.

Seventeen of the dead and 138 of the missing were in Fujian Province, said the flood control office of Fujian. More than 1.4 million people were affected by the typhoon and 32,000 houses were destroyed in Fujian. Saomai,the eighth typhoon to hit China, landed in Cangnan County of Wenzhou city at 5:25 PM Thursday with wind speeds of up to 244 km per hour, bringing torrential rains and strong winds.

Saomai is the most powerful typhoon to hit the Chinese mainland since Aug. 1, 1956 when a typhoon made a landfall in Zhejiang with winds of up to 234 km per hour, leaving 4,900 dead and 15,000 injured in the province.

In Jinxiang Town of Cangnan, the bodies of 43 people, including eight children, have been retrieved from the rubble of collapsed houses, where they had sought shelter from rains and high winds.

Losses exceeded 4.5 billion yuan (US$562 million) in Wenzhou.

Emergency relief materials worth 500,000 yuan (US$62,500), including quilts and medicine, were sent on Friday to Cangnan from Hangzhou, the provincial capital, said the provincial Red Cross Society.

Typhoon Saomai slammed Fujian soon after it made landfall. It lashed Fuding with winds of up to 270 km per hour, according to the provincial flood control headquarters.

"It is the strongest typhoon that we have ever seen," said an official with the Fuding flood control office, adding that the scenes were really terrible. Houses of the headquarters were seriously damaged with all glasses of the buildings lashed into pieces. Rainfall in Fuding exceeded 300 mm in 12 hours.

More than 10,000 houses were destroyed and 80,000 others were damaged in Fuding, said the official. Power was largely cut off in Fuding, Xiapu, Zherong, Fu'an and Ningde. Twelve people in two vessels from Taiwan Province and a fishing boat from Fujian have been rescued by local maritime workers, said the provincial flood control office. They had been reported missing after failing to anchor in Fuding because of high winds.

The provincial government has allocated 2 million yuan (US$250,000) in cash and a batch of disaster relief materials, including 1,500 tens, 3,000 quilts and 50,000 pieces of clothes to Saomai-hit areas.

About one million in Zhejiang and 620,000 in Fujian were evacuated to safe areas ahead of Saomai. More than 30,000 vessels returned to harbor in Zhejiang.

Typhoon Saomai had weakened into a tropical depression by 9 AM Friday. Its center was over Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, at 10 AM and it was continuing to lose force, said the provincial meteorological observatory.

East China's Anhui Province has started an emergency plan to combat Saomai as rainstorms and strong winds were forecast in its south.

Three other storms this year, Bilis, Kaemi and Prapiroon, caused floods, mud flows and landslides in east and southern China, leaving at least 752 dead and 280 missing.

Natural disasters had killed 1,699 people in China and left 415 missing this year, the Red Cross Society of China said on Thursday.

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2006)