GUANGZHOU: The heavy rains dropped on Guangzhou by Typhoon Mindulle brought temporary relief from a heatwave blamed for 41 deaths.

Despite bringing some cool relief, Mindulle was anything but friendly. So far, the typhoon has killed more than 15 people and flooded thousands of hectares.

In Guangzhou, temperatures fell 4 degrees to about 34 C yesterday.

The capital of Guangdong Province had seen temperatures that broke five-decade-old records in the three days leading up to Saturday. In the previous week, the mercury climbed to as high as 39.3 C.

Several people died at work, mostly construction workers working long hours under the sun, said the Guangzhou 120 Emergency Medical Rescue Centre. The youngest was 20 years old.

The other victims were mainly local senior citizens who died of sunstroke or related diseases at home. The oldest was a 93 year old woman.

Liang Zijing, a doctor at the Emergency Department in Guangzhou No 1 People's Hospital, said the heatwave caused many complications for local senior citizens. These citizens accounted for more than 80 per cent of emergency cases in the past week, Liang said.

Guangzhou 120 emergency medical rescue centre also received 107 high fever patients and another 100 sunstroke victims in the past three days.

More than 520 ambulances were sent to help people affected by the heatwave victims in a single day on July 1. The centre usually dispatches about 200 ambulances a day.

The Guangzhou Observatory issued a warning for six consecutive days ending last Saturday.

Lin Liangxun said more than 20 cities and counties in Guangdong saw record high temperatures last week.

Lin said Guangdong's hot weather would last until the end of the summer.

Despite the cooling effects of Typhoon Mindulle, an official from Guangdong Provincial Observatory, Lin Liangxun, yesterday warned the heatwave would continue in the southern Chinese province in the next few days.

While Mindulle's heavy rains were a boon for some, they had the reverse effect on many coastal areas.

Mindulle, the Korean word for dandelion, mainly hit Taiwan and inland provinces in Southeast China, East China's Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, said a meteorological expert surnamed Yang from the National Meteorological Centre.

The death toll caused by Mindulle rose to 15, with eight injured and nine missing in Taiwan. It brought heavy downpours to central and southern parts of Taiwan since July 1. zMindulle has uprooted trees, swollen rivers, pushed seawater backward and caused mudslides in the island.

The storm landed in Leqing of East China's Zhejiang Province at about 9:30 am on July 3.

Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, was hit by torrential rains and gales.

The typhoon attacked 18 ships, drowned one 12-year-old boy and his mother and left two missing at Taihu Lake in Huzhou, said local government sources.

Shanghai was also hit, but there were no reports of death or injuries, said Yao Zuqing, a weatherwoman with the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

Yao said city's Chongming County received the heaviest rainfall and more than 2,000 hectares of field were flooded.

In the southeast of Jiangsu Province, many cities have suffered from heavy rain, but there were no reports of casualties.

And Beijing last night also experienced a thunderstorm, which was described by the Beijing Meteorological Observatory as a "normal phenomenon" in summer, with nothing to do with the Typhoon Mindulle in the south.

Such weather will continue in the next two days and rainfall will vary in different areas of the city, according to the observatory.

(China Daily 07/05/2004 page1)