Trees bear the brunt of Vicente

Typhoon Vicente, which barreled its way across South China earlier this week, not only affected the lives of local people but also tore down many thousands of trees in Guangdong province.

In the wake of the tropical cyclone on Monday, Shenzhen's urban management bureau has reported 115,000 trees being uprooted or destroyed, while neighboring Hong Kong got off relatively lightly, with just 1,000 trees affected.

No further details were given as to the types of trees affected in Shenzhen, but some sources suggested many could have been those newly planted for the Universiade, the international sport event for students, held in the city in August.

Song Liping, the forestry department chief of Shenzhen urban management bureau, said the reason why so many trees lay broken was the fact that the typhoon was the hardest for a decade, and the heavy rainfall had had a major effect on tress especially planted along roads and highways.

"For instance, the trunk of the orchid tree is not very resistant to wind, much like big leaf mahogan trees planted locally which are big and heavy, and can often slope and break easily in wind," Song said.

She added that many of those trees are not found along roads, but on green belts to add beauty to the landscape; but as the city has grown in recent years, many trees have also been planted along streets, and they are vulnerable to wind and storms.

She said she personally believed the fallen trees were nothing to do with the Universiade, and that the number was so huge because of new statistical methods used, which include all the trees that had fallen or had branches broken, in all districts and committees, while before they only counted trees directly managed by the bureau, in Luohu and Futian districts.

In 1999, there was also a serious typhoon, when 24,598 trees were broken; in 2003 during the enormous typhoon Dujuan, 26,300 were affected.

"This time, if we only count the trees directly managed by us in the downtown area, the number would be 18,293," she said.

She said the bureau was working hard to rescue damaged trees by cutting affected broken branches and mending other damage, ideally within the next three weeks.

Meanwhile, in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, typhoon Vicente also inflicted heavy damage on the city's trees, with 6,518 trees uprooted or blown down.

Rows of trees planted in cement containers were found uprooted or blown down on Nantian Road in the city's Haizhu district. And gardeners were still busy clearing away collapsed trees and branches on Thursday.

The city's landscape department explained the trees were planted this way because there are many pipelines, including gas, electricity, water and telecommunication pipelines under Nantian Road.

Authorities have promised to soon replant the trees.

"But the tree trunks will be reinforced by bamboo rods and ropes," authorities added.

In Haizhu district, more than 120 were reported to have collapsed when the tropical storm struck the southern metropolis.

In Taishan, a coastal city in western part of Guangdong, another 5,000 trees were also uprooted by the gales, most kapok and banyan trees.

A large number of trees were also reported to have collapsed when Vicente struck the cities of Jiangmen, Foshan and Huizhou in the Pearl River Delta, which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Contact the writers at huangyuli@chinadaily.com.cn and zhengcaixiong@chinadaily.com.cn