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Typhoon socks southern China

By the CNN Wire Staff
People clean their homes after flooding brought by typhoon Fanapi in southern Kaohsiung city on September 20.
People clean their homes after flooding brought by typhoon Fanapi in southern Kaohsiung city on September 20.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • People are dead, missing and displaced
  • Guandong and Fujian got slammed
  • It's the strongest typhoon to hit China this year
RELATED TOPICS
  • China
  • Weather

(CNN) -- At least 55 people in southern China died in floods, landslides and heavy rains caused by Typhoon Fanapi, according to

state-run Xinhua news agency, citing local authorities.

Officials said 42 were still missing, more than 1.26 million people were affected and 98,000 in low-lying areas were forced to be evacuated, a local government official said.

The deluge socked Guangdong and Fujian provinces.

Rainstorms and and geological disasters had destroyed more than 4,200 homes and inundated more than 48,700 hectares of cropland, Direct economic losses were estimated at more than 2 billion yuan ($300 million), the official said.

Tents, clothes, quilts, bottled water and rice, have been dispatched to the disaster-hit areas, and helicopters were used Thursday to airdrop relief materials to victims, officials said.

Typhoon Fanapi, the 11th and strongest typhoon that hit China this year, landed in Fujian Province on Monday morning, but wreaked the most havoc in Guangdong.

No casualties have been reported in Fujian.