Typhoon Rammasun leaves more than 100 dead in Philippines and China

After causing devastation in the Philippines, Typhoon Rammasun has become the strongest typhoon to hit southern China in four decades.

According to an official statement, the direct economic losses caused by the storm amounted to 26.55 billion yuan ($4.32 billion) in south China. News reports say that Rammasun’s death toll reached 118 on Monday, with 94 lives claimed in the Philippines and latest casualties reported in northern Vietnam and southern China. The typhoon, which struck the Philippines earlier last week, had claimed 17 lives in China by Sunday.

In northern Vietnam, where the typhoon made its landfall on Saturday, it damaged rice and other crops on 3,300 hectares and disrupted traffic in the region, according to the nation’s Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control.

News reports also suggest that Rammasun weakened to a tropical depression early Sunday morning but is still affecting China's southern regions.

New threat
Amid all this, according to a report published in South China Morning Post, a major storm that is forecast to become a severe typhoon is churning its way across the Pacific and could strike Taiwan on Wednesday. Typhoon Matmo was centred some 720km east-northeast of Manila on Monday afternoon.

The report also suggested that according to Hong Kong Observatory, Matmo would become a severe typhoon before reaching Taiwan. It had earlier predicted that is would become a 'super typhoon' - a storm with sustained winds of over 185km/h - as it crossed the South China Sea after passing the Philippines.