The death toll from typhoon Saomai reached 295 yesterday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The discovery of 97 bodies in waters off Fujian's port city Fuding raised the city's death toll to at least 178. A further 171 people are missing in the province.

Fatalities stood at 206 in Fujian, 87 in Zhejiang and two in inland Jiangxi, which was hit by flooding and landslides after Saomai moved westwards, the report said.

Officials with Fujian Provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said most of the victims were killed when the typhoon, the strongest in five years, broke the moorings of their ships after they sought shelter in the harbour.

Saomai, the Vietnamese name for the planet Venus, sank more than 1,000 ships and wrecked more than 50,000 houses when it slammed into the coast of East China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday.

Fuding suffered at least 2.5 billion yuan (US$312 million) in damage, mainly due to lost boats and fishing revenues. A fisherman named Zhou Chuanqing in Shacheng told Xinhua that he had lost 20 net-pens full of fish worth more than 300,000 yuan (US$37,500) during the typhoon.

The local government has mobilized thousands of soldiers to help rebuild damaged roads, power lines and water supplies in Fujian.

Meanwhile, natural disasters triggered by rain and snow melting at high altitudes have left 25 dead and affected 1.2 million people over the last month in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Xinhua reported.

Twenty-three people died in floods and mud-rock flows in the Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Ili, Altay, in northern Xinjiang, and Turpan, central Xinjiang, in July and early August, said an official with the region's civil affairs department.

The Central Meteorological Observatory warned yesterday that the month-long drought will continue in Chongqing, Sichuan and parts of Guizhou, Hubei, Shanxi and Gansu provinces.

Source: China Daily