As East China picks up the pieces from the devastation left in the wake of Saomai's trail, the southwestern part of the country reels under drought and high temperatures.

The death toll from the typhoon rose to 255 yesterday, with 41 more bodies discovered in Fuding of Fujian Province.

More than 160 are still missing after Saomai, the strongest typhoon to hit the country in five decades, wrought havoc in the eastern provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi.

In Fuding, the worst-hit city in the province, 138 people were killed, 1,350 injured and 86 missing.

Officials at the Fujian Provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said most of the victims were killed when the "super typhoon" broke the moorings on their ships which sought shelter in the harbour.

Others died in typhoon-triggered incidents such as floods, landslides and mudflows.

The Fuding death-toll update brings the total fatalities in Fujian to 166. Previous reports listed 87 dead and 52 missing in Zhejiang Province where Saomai barreled in, and two dead and one missing in nearby Jiangxi.

In Zhejiang, at least 2.1 million people have been affected, 18,000 houses destroyed and 56 provincial roads and national highways swamped, causing losses of 4.89 billion yuan (US$611 million).

Meanwhile, heat waves in Southwest China have caused blackouts, water shortages and an increasing number of people suffering sunstrokes, local media reported.

The highest temperatures there ranged between 35C and 40C; and water levels in many sections of the Yangtze River are historically low.

The Yangtze River Hydrological Bureau said that this month, the volume of water entering the Three Gorges Reservoir in the middle reaches of the river was only 8,400 cubic metres per second, about the same as the February dry season.

Weather forecasts offer little hope of rainfall in the next few days in the upper and middle reaches of the river, including Sichua Province and Chongqing Municipality, where farmers are facing blistering drought.

Chongqing is suffering the worst drought in the past 50 years and water supplies for nearly 7.5 million people have been threatened, local authorities said yesterday.

More than 1.3 million hectares of cropland have been affected, according to a spokesman for the Chongqing Municipal Disaster Relief Office.

"Two thirds of the communities and townships in the municipality have reported water supply shortages," he said.

The drought has caused direct losses of about 2.5 billion yuan (US$312.5 million), he said.

The dry spell has lasted for more than 50 days in most areas of Chongqing, the spokesman said.

In neighbouring Sichuan, the drought has made it difficult for more than 3 million people and 4 million livestock to access drinking water. Meanwhile, nearly 1.4 million hectares of cropland have been affected, or 39 per cent of the total in the drought-hit areas.

"Sichuan is suffering its worst drought since 1972," said Zhang Shilin, director of the office responsible for artificial rainfall.

Xinhua - China Daily

(China Daily 08/15/2006 page11)