Typhoon Hagupit left 17 people dead and two others missing in the southern Chinese city of Yangjiang, the local government said on Friday.

Hagupit-triggered floods and high winds affected more than 1.5 million residents in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province.

The local government now faces the task of evacuating 100,000 people facing natural disasters in the wake of the typhoon, a city government spokesman said.

The typhoon also destroyed power facilities, inundated crops, toppled houses, killed livestock, capsized ships and damaged embankments, he said. Direct economic losses were estimated at 2.46 billion yuan (US$362 million).

"Currently, more than 8,000 people are repairing the damaged power facilities," he said.

"For those residents whose houses were leveled, the city government will give an allowance of 5,000 yuan to each family to rebuild their homes, in addition to the same amount of money granted by the provincial government."

According to the National Meteorological Observatory, Hagupit, the 14th strong typhoon this year, landed in Maoming, Guangdong on Wednesday morning.

It left China on Thursday morning and moved into Vietnam, downgrading to a severe tropical storm as it did so.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2008)