China storm kills 482

At least 482 people were killed, hundreds went missing and over 30 million others affected by floods and natural disasters triggered by tropical storm Bilis, one of the worst to hit China in recent times.

The sudden spike in the death toll came from central China's Hunan Province which said that 346 people died in floods caused by Bilis while 89 others remained missing. The sharp increase in Hunan raised the country's death toll to 482, with 63 confirmed dead in Guangdong Province, 30 in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and 43 in Fujian Province.

At least 156 people were still missing and 26.45 million people had been affected in China's southern and eastern provinces, the Ministry of Civil Affairs had said. The heavy rains and floods toppled 212,000 houses, damaged 287,000 other and forced 2.95 million local residents to move to safer places.

More than 6.68 million Guangdong residents were affected and 1.08 million relocated. The direct economic losses have reached more than USD 1.1 billion, local officials said. In neighbouring Guangxi, more than 6.53 million people were affected by rainstorms, flooding and mudslides, which incurred about USD 2.75 million in economic losses.

Typhoon Bilis, which was downgraded into a tropical storm when it landed in China last Friday, triggered heavy rainfall and serious floods in Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi.

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