Pound Ridge, NY, August 11, 2006--The titantic typhoon Saomai, which slammed into China yesterday, came ashore at Fuijan and Zhejiang provinces, a region thick with flooring manufacturers and export centers.
It's too early to know how much damage may have been done to flooring makers and traders, but clearly the devastation overall was terrible. According to China Daily and other news sources, Saomai has so far claimed at least 111 lives, left 190 missing and forced the evacuation of more than 1.7 million people. Direct economic losses were estimated at more than 11 billion yuan (US $1.4 billion).
There are reportedly more than 300 laminated floor board producers in China; many are Fujian province, Shanghai and Zhejiang where small coastal towns have grown rapidly to match China's explosive wood export and import industry.
Heavy rains and winds were forecast for the next two days for the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, as well as the inland provinces of Jiangxi and Anhui. Most of the reported deaths occurred in Zhejiang province, where Saomai--the most recent storm--made landfall, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The rapid expansion of wood imports and exports in the past five years has tripled the size of some Zhejiang coastal towns. For example, Jiang Miaogen, a section chief with the Zhejiang Province Office for Industry and Commerce, described the emergence of 370 private factories to make wood flooring in Nanxun, a canal port 60 miles west of Shanghai.
"All these companies have developed very rapidly over the last three to five years," Jiang said.
Making matters worse, the region is still recovering from Tropical Storm Bilis, which killed more than 600 people last month.
