Typhoon Haikui wreaks more havoc

Haikui, the third typhoon to hit already saturated eastern China in a week, stayed on its destructive path despite being downgraded to a tropical storm. As of 4 p.m. Thursday, Haikui was blamed for the deaths of at least four people, two of them in Shanghai, the country's largest city and its main commercial hub, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. The storm, which came ashore Wednesday morning in Zhejiang province, also forced the relocation of more than 2.14 million people in Shanghai and in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, Xinhua News Agency reported. The storm damaged or destroyed thousands of homes in these regions, and affected about 6 million people. Haikui also was blamed for damaging or destroying about 1 million acres of cropland. Haikui trailed typhoons Saola and Damrey, which struck other regions in eastern China. Those storms were blamed in the deaths of at least 23 people. Saola came ashore after leaving more than 50 people dead in Manila and other parts of the northern Philippines. Remnants of Saola unleashed more torrential rains and landslides until Thursday, flooding much of Philippine capital and neighboring areas, and killing more people there. In China, even before the arrival of the three storms, vast regions of the country had been battered hit by heavy rains since July, resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people. In the capital of Beijing alone, the death toll from these rains has reached 79.