Oil price tumbled on super typhoon Saomai to hit China

August 10 2006: 1:20 PM EDT

Crude sinks $2; investors grow more risk averse after oil soared
earlier this week on Prudhoe Bay news. It is in the same day that the
most powerful storm hits China.

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Typhoon Saomai, the most powerful storm to hit
China in five decades, raged ashore Thursday and churned across the
crowded southeast, killing at least two people, wrecking houses and
capsizing ships after 1.5 million residents were evacuated.

Damage was expected to be widespread in areas that were still
recovering from Tropical Storm Bilis, which claimed more than 600 lives
last month.

Saomai, with winds of up to 216 kph (135 mph), hit land in China in the
coastal town of Mazhan in Zhejiang province, the official Xinhua News
Agency said. The area is about 1,500 kilometers (950 miles) south of
the Chinese capital, Beijing, which wasn't affected.

The Zhejiang provincial weather bureau said it was the most powerful
storm to strike China since the founding of the communist government in
1949, Xinhua said.

Saomai, dubbed a "super typhoon" by Chinese forecasters due to its huge
size and high wind speeds, was the eighth major storm of this year's
unusually violent typhoon season.

It killed at least two people in the Philippines earlier in the week
and dumped rain on Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, forcing airlines to
cancel hundreds of flights.

In China, two people were killed Thursday in the southern city of
Fuding in Fujian province, which borders Zhejiang to the south, Xinhua
said. It didn't give any other details.

Eight Taiwanese sailors were missing after two ships capsized in a
harbor in Fujian, while four Chinese were missing after their ship
struck a reef, the agency reported.

Before the storm hit China, authorities evacuated 990,000 people from
flood-prone areas in Zhejiang and 569,000 from parts of neighboring
Fujian province, Xinhua said.

Xinhua said 80 people were injured and more than 1,000 houses toppled
in and around Mazhan. It said three centimeters (one inch) of rain fell
in one hour.

Saomai is the Vietnamese name for the planet Venus.

China's weather bureau forecast a summer of powerful typhoons, saying a
warm Pacific current would create bigger storms and weather patterns
over Tibet would draw them farther inland.

Bilis set off flooding and landslides as far inland as Hunan province,
hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the coast.

Most of the deaths from Bilis occurred in areas away from coastal
communities that are protected by dike networks and have long
experience in evacuating flood-prone areas.

Farther south on China's coast, Guangdong province and the Guangxi
region were lashed last week by Typhoon Prapiroon, which killed at
least 80 people in floods and landslides.

The Hong Kong airport said Thursday that 10 flights between Hong Kong
and Taiwan and the mainland city of Fuzhou were canceled and 16
delayed.

In the Philippines, two people died and seven were missing after waves
and heavy rains from Saomai battered coastal villages, officials said.

More than 200 houses built on stilts were destroyed as waves up to
three meters (10 feet) high ravaged the coast of Bongao, the capital of
the southern province of Tawi-Tawi, before dawn Wednesday, said
provincial Gov. Sadikul Sahali.

A child died and another was reported missing, he said.

"There is floating debris everywhere," Sahali said.

Elsewhere, a man was killed as waves washed away about 200 shanties in
seaside villages in Talisay, a city on the central island of Cebu,
early Wednesday, the civil defense office said.

Saomai passed north of Taiwan, but the Central Weather Bureau issued a
warning for waters off the island's northern coast. Some airlines
canceled domestic flights.

Even as Saomai stormed ashore, Chinese forecasters were already closely
watching Tropical Storm Bopha, which trailed behind it farther out in
the Pacific.

Late Thursday, Bopha was about 180 kilometers (110 miles) southeast of
Guangdong and moving west with winds of 47 kph (29 mph), according to
the Hong Kong Observatory.

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