Two people were killed and two others went missing in east China's Zhejiang Province, where typhoon Matsa made landfall in the wee hours of Saturday, the local government confirmed on Sunday.

By 3:00 p.m. Saturday, the ninth typhoon of this year had affected a total of 8.4 million people, toppled 13,108 houses and caused 6.5 billion yuan (US$800 million) of direct losses in Zhejiang, the provincial flood control headquarters told Xinhua Sunday afternoon.

It said the typhoon also destroyed 205,000 hectares of cropland and was to slash grain output by 241,000 tons at least.

Typhoon Matsa, the name of a fish in Laos, shut down nearly 63,500 businesses, damaged roads and destroyed power transmission and communication facilities when it battered the eastern province on Saturday.

Packing high winds and rainstorm, the typhoon destroyed 21 reservoirs, 221 kilometers of embankments and damaged a large number of other water resources facilities.

Most part of the province reported heavy rain starting from Thursday.

By Sunday morning, about 67 percent of the province had received more than 50 millimeters of rainfall. In Yongjia and Yueqing counties in the city of Wenzhou, the rain volume had exceeded 600 millimeters.

Typhoon Matsa made landfall at Ganjiang town in Zhejiang Province at 3:40 a.m. Saturday, and moved northwest toward six major cities, including the provincial capital Wenzhou.

It also lashed nearby Shanghai and obliged all flights to be canceled.

On Friday night, one worker at a construction site in Shanghai died and two others were injured when a shed tumbled in rainstorms that heralded Matsa's coming.

The typhoon trailed off into a tropical storm Saturday night and left Zhejiang Province.

The neighboring provinces of Anhui and Jiangsu have beefed up safety inspection along dykes of local rivers and called back fishing vessels so as to minimize damages to be inflicted by the typhoon.

(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2005)