BEIJING, Sept. 28 -- If an aerial camera flying over this island were to zoom in past the flattened houses, past the advertisement boards crumpled like accordions, past the ships pulled loose from their moorings, it might zero in on a middle-aged man standing for hours beside his fallen banana trees, crying.

   

Waves caused by Typhoon Damrey hit a dock as a resident walks by in Haikou, south China's Hainan province, September 25, 2005. (newsphoto)

There was Hainan, the South China province that had just been ploughed over by Typhoon Damrey. And there was Tan Xuehe, an ordinary villager in Tayang, a small town along the eastern coastline. The banana trees are the only thing that can bring his family some bread.

    "Yesterday, I had just told my wife we would have a good harvest soon, but the storm ruined everything," he lamented. The pay for a year's hard work in the field, about 24,000 yuan (US$2,959), has vanished without a trace.

    "Not only I, but more than 70 families in our village all face the same situation," he said, adding that his house had been damaged, as well. "Fortunately, nobody was hurt. We're now trying to repair our houses."

    This picture is not unique on the island, especially in and around the three cities that were hit most severely: Wenchang, Qionghai and Wanning. Some power and communications lines were still down yesterday evening.

    Sixteen are confirmed dead, most killed when a building collapsed. And the cost of damage on the island has risen past 8.46 billion yuan (US$1.04 billion), as estimated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs yesterday.

    More than 5,000 houses collapsed, and 3.89 million people were affected. About 111,000 hectares of crops were flooded. Fish- and prawn-raising ponds, coastal dikes and other water conservancy facilities were also breached.

    Damrey continued its fury and smashed Viet Nam yesterday, cutting power supplies and ripping up trees there.

    "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Zhang Dong, a fisherman at the Qinglan Harbour of Wenchang, pointing to a sunken ship. "I've never seen such a big wind in the past 40 years. We tied ships together in the harbour, but the majority were still damaged."

    Local authorities dispatched four rescue teams and allocated 2 million yuan (US$246,000) to help relief work.

    In Guangdong Province, torrential rain hobbled rescue and recovery efforts. The downpour was expected to continue today and tomorrow in Zhanjiang on the Leizhou Peninsula. Ferry services across the Qiongzhou Strait had not resumed by yesterday afternoon, but service was scheduled to reopen by noon today.

    More than 1,000 passengers and 600 vehicles were still stranded in Xuwen County at the southern tip of the peninsula yesterday.

    Ministry figures showed that 436,000 people had been evacuated in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan and that 5.71 million people were affected overall.

    Tan Xuehe was just one of them.

    (Source: China Daily)