Vice Premier Hui Liangyu on Sunday called on local governments in east China to counter typhoon Sepat and try their best to reduce casualties and financial losses.
Hui, also director of the National Commission for Disaster Reduction, stressed that governments in typhoon-battered areas should keep a close watch on gales and heavy rains and other natural disasters like floods, slides and mudflows.
Typhoon Sepat, the fiercest since this year, landed in Hui'an County of Quanzhou City in Fujian Province early Sunday morning, lashing the central and north parts of Fujian and neighboring Zhejiang. The death toll from the typhoon has reached 15.
A total of 1.02 million people have been evacuated in the two provinces.
The typhoon damaged 366 houses in Quanzhou City of Fujian, inundated 5,920 hectares of crops, and cut off road traffic and power supply lines in some regions, affecting 162,600 people and inflicting an economic loss of 72 million yuan.
The typhoon also caused severe damages in Zhejiang, ruining 19,700 hectares of crops, wrecking 28.7 km of power supply lines and 22.1 km of dams, affecting 616,000 people across the province and resulting in a direct economic loss of 250 million yuan (32.9 million U.S. dollars).