Asian Storms Leave Trail of Death, Damage

A weekend typhoon killed 84 people and injured 4,362 in southern China’s Guangdong province, according to news reports Monday.

Typhoon Amy, the second typhoon to hit southern China in a week, also destroyed 38,000 homes and damaged 480,000 acres of farmland, said the Yangcheng Evening News of Canton, capital of Guangdong province. Damage exceeded $3.7 million, it added.

Meanwhile, unusually heavy weekend rains in South Korea triggered floods and landslides that killed at least 35 people, relief workers said Monday.

Another 19 people were missing and 60 were injured in Sunday’s storms, officials in Seoul said.

Hardest hit was the Osan-Yongin area, about 40 miles south of Seoul, where at least 21 people were killed by landslides or rain-swollen rivers, authorities said.

About 2,800 houses in low-lying areas throughout the country’s south-central region were flooded.

In the Philippines, mudflows loosened by Typhoon Brendan engulfed villages near the Mt. Pinatubo volcano Monday. Local officials said one villager was killed and up to 4,000 were stranded.

The mudflows were made up of volcanic debris from Mt. Pinatubo, which has erupted for 44 days, devastating nearby Clark Air Base.

Mudflows as high as 20 feet engulfed villages in Tarlac and Pampanga provinces, military spokesman Maj. Amado Paneda said.

More than 10,000 people survived by fleeing to high ground in Pampanga province, he said.

In Laos, floods fed by heavy rains killed 16 people, state radio reported. The floods also destroyed rice fields, irrigation canals and reservoirs in northern Laos.

Vietnam’s official news agency reported Monday that 200 houses in Vietnam were destroyed and many bridges washed out as two northwestern rivers, the Ma and Da, surged to their highest levels since 1972 because of continued heavy rains.

The official Vietnam News Agency report did not mention any casualties.