An old woman points at the wreckage left by tropical storm Kaemi yesterday at Gantang Village in Central China's Hunan Province. [newsphoto]

Typhoon Kaemi has killed nine people and left 19 missing since it hit the Chinese mainland, the National Natural Disaster Reduction Committee said last night.

Seven of the deaths were reported in east China's Jiangxi Province, and the others were in Guangdong Province in the south. The missing were all from Jiangxi.

Nearly 670,000 people were evacuated to higher ground by late yesterday in Fujian and Jiangxi and 8,700 in Guangdong.

Kaemi - the Korean word for "ant" - was the fifth typhoon to strike China this year.

The storm made landfall in Fujian at 3:50pm on Tuesday, later weakening to a tropical depression.

Many parts of the province were hit early yesterday by rainfall ranging from 50 to 300 millimeters, according to flood control authorities.

A 200-meter-long levee collapsed in Fujian's Zhao'an County, which neighbors Guangdong Province, threatening 20,000 people in six villages.

More than 200 soldiers were dispatched to make repairs, according to Zhao'an government sources.

Early Tuesday, a 300-meter-long levee at an industrial park in Jinjiang City also collapsed due to high waves caused by Kaemi.

Local authorities said the breach was temporarily closed on Tuesday evening after 1,000 people were organized to make repairs.

Heavy rain also flooded five townships in Jiangxi's Ganzhou, causing landslides, destroying roads and cutting off communications, said Ye Yuzhong, the city's vice mayor.

Repair and rescue efforts by local officials, servicemen and police were hampered by continual torrential rain, Ye said.

Rainfall of 80 to 200 millimeters was forecast for many coastal cities, including Zhangzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou and Fuzhou.

In Shanghai, all ferry boats operating on 15 routes between the city and nearby ports such as Putuo Mountain and Shengsi in Zhejiang Province suspended service yesterday morning.

More than 300 vessels working on construction at the Yangshan Deep-Water Port were confined within the harbor area.

Zhang Chunhua, an officer with the maritime safety administration office at Yangshan, said passenger service at local ports would be suspended for another day because wind speed was not expected to diminish today.