Typhoon leaves 20k homes without power in SKorea

The most powerful typhoon to hit South Korea in years battered its southern region on Tuesday, dumping almost 3 feet of rain, destroying roads and felling power lines, leaving 20,000 homes without electricity as thousands of people fled to safer ground.

Typhoon Hinnamnor grazed the resort island of Jeju and made landfall near the mainland port of Busan in the morning and was moving northeast toward the sea with winds of up to 144 kilometers per hour. South Korean officials put the nation on alert about potential damages from flooding, landslides and tidal waves unleashed by Hinnamnor, which came just weeks after heavy rains in the region around the capital Seoul caused flooding that killed at least 14 people. The storm dumped more than 94 centimeters of rain in central Jeju since Sunday, where winds peaked at 96 mph. The Safety Ministry said more than 3,400 people in the southern regions were forced to evacuate from their homes because of safety concerns and that officials were advising or ordering 14,000 more people to evacuate. Workers as of 6 a.m. managed to restore electricity to 2,795 of the 20,334 households that were knocked out of power.