Strongest storm to hit China in four decades kills 18

The strongest typhoon to hit southern China in four decades has killed 18 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, the government and state media said Sunday, while in the Philippines the death toll from the storm's earlier destruction rose to 94.

Typhoon Rammasun killed nine people and left five missing after hitting Hainan island on Friday off China's southern coast, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement. Nine others died later in the Guangxi region as the storm plowed into the mainland on its way north to Vietnam.

The storm destroyed 37,000 homes and ravaged 1.2 million acres of crops in Hainan and Guangdong provinces and Guangxi, causing $4.3 billion in damage, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The typhoon is the strongest to hit southern China in 41 years, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Wind speeds reached 130 miles per hour, with the storm knocking down power lines and damaging buildings, Xinhua said.

Authorities in southern China ordered the highest level of alert and suspended hundreds of buses, trains and flights across the region. It is expected to bring heavy rain throughout the weekend before moving southwest and weakening on Monday. Heavy rain is also expected over part of northern Vietnam.

In the Philippines, Rammasun ravaged the coconut-growing southern portion of the main island of Luzon, including the central Bicol region, which remained without power four days after the storm struck.

Typhoons are common at this time of year in the South China Sea, picking up strength from the warm waters and dissipating over land.

Flooding across a large swathe of southern China in the past week has already killed at least 34 people.

Wire services