BEIJING – A typhoon that left scores dead in the Philippines and two in China weakened to a tropical storm as it churned toward northern Vietnam on Saturday, smashing boats in its path and lashing the region with rain and wind. It was expected to make landfall before dark. Authorities said more than 170,000 people were being prepared for evacuation.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said several Vietnamese ships had been wrecked off islands in the South China Sea, but there was no immediate word on whether anyone had died. It quoted a maritime-affairs official on the southern resort island of Hainan, hit Friday, as saying rescue efforts were under way. A man answering the telephone in the maritime bureau said he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media. Typhoon Conson, China’s first typhoon of the year, roared in from the Philippines, where the death toll continued rising Saturday to 65, with 87 missing. Xinhua said a falling billboard killed a motorcycle rider after the storm brushed Hainan, and another toppled and buried a security guard under debris. By 8 a.m. Saturday, Hainan’s meteorological station said Conson was moving northwest over open water again and had weakened into a strong tropical storm. It was expected to hit northern Vietnam by afternoon or evening and was moving at 12 miles an hour.

China is bracing itself for its worst floods in more than a decade as Typhoon Conson closes in on its southern coast.  Conson – which claimed at least 37 lives in the Philippines – brings with it torrential rains increasing the risk of floods, meteorologists warned. Floods and landslides have killed at least 135 people in China this month and 41 are missing, state media report.

More than 35 million people across China have been hit by the poor weather and 1.2 million have been relocated. Conson had been downgraded to a tropical storm after it left the Philippines but strengthened into a typhoon again late on Thursday.The China Meteorological Administration said it was packing winds of 75mph (120km/h). Conson is expected to make landfall late on Friday in Hainan, an island off south-east China, where 24,000 fishing boats have been recalled. Light rain was already falling on Hainan, and conditions were dark and windy, an official at the local meteorological bureau told AP news agency.  Parts of Guangdong province and neighbouring Guangxi region are also forecast to see torrential rains over the next 24 hours.

MANILA, Philippines — Electricity was restored in the Philippine capital, flights resumed and schools reopened Thursday after the first typhoon of the season killed at least 26 people and plunged most of the main northern island into darkness. Thirty-eight people remained missing, mostly fishermen caught by Typhoon Conson’s fury at sea.

Electricity was restored to most of Manila and nearby provinces after Conson, packing winds of 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour, slammed ashore late Tuesday and early Wednesday, toppling power lines, downing trees and ripping off roofs and tarpaulin billboards. Flights at the Manila international airport also resumed and schools reopened. Heavy rains, unrelated to the typhoon, have also wreaked havoc in China and Japan. The death toll from rain-triggered landslides rose to 41 in western China, and workers raced to drain overflowing reservoirs in the southeast. Flooding has killed more than 100 people in China so far this month, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Storm in southern and western Japan left two dead and three missing. An elderly woman drowned in a swollen river and another woman in her 70s was found buried in a landslide in Hiroshima, western Japan, according to Hiroshima police. Two women in their 70s also were missing there, as was an 82-year-old man in neighboring Shimane prefecture. More rain was predicted Thursday in both Japan and China. Conson, which weakened into a tropical storm over the South China Sea, was forecast to make another landfall along the Chinese-Vietnamese border this weekend.

In the Philippines, many died while fleeing the typhoon’s fury, regional disaster operations officer Fred Bragas said. The 26 deaths were spread over six provinces and areas near Manila. Newly elected President Benigno Aquino III scolded the weather bureau for failing to predict that the storm would hit Manila, which left government agencies unprepared for the onslaught. The Philippines is hit by about 20 typhoons and storms a year, gaining a reputation as the welcome mat for the most destructive cyclones from the Pacific. Last year, back-to-back typhoons inundated Manila and outlying provinces, killing nearly 1,000 people. Several people were killed by falling debris or electrocuted. One man drowned trying to save a dozen pigs in a swollen lake south of Manila, while his companion was swept away and is missing, Bragas said. Twenty-seven out of 30 towns in Laguna province were flooded and the governor declared a state of calamity. A concrete wall collapsed and pinned four carpenters to death while a landslide killed a man in his house in nearby Tagaytay city. The man’s son remains missing in the landslide, Bragas said. In Quezon province, four fishermen drowned and 18 others were rescued after huge waves and strong winds battered their motor boats as they raced toward an island to seek shelter late Tuesday, provincial Gov. David Suarez told. Villagers and the coast guard have launched a search for 27 missing fishermen, he said.
Three vessels, including an LPG carrier, sank during the typhoon and most of the crew were rescued while some are missing. Another nine fishermen were rescued after big waves overturned their boats off the island province of Catanduanes, regional military spokesman Maj. Harold Cabunoc said. The other 10 remained missing.