Florida Hit By Massive Hurricane

Hurricane Charley blew out of Florida yesterday leaving death and destruction in its wake.

The storm had battered the US coast with an unexpected wind force and a 15ft-high surge of seawater that destroyed airports, hospitals and homes. Initial estimates of fatalities ranged from 'dozens' to more than 200. It was the worst storm to hit the state in more than 40 years and knocked out power in 1.3million homes and businesses as it swept from southwest Florida to the Atlantic coast at Daytona Beach. President George W. Bush declared it a major disaster area.

In Punta Gorda, a town of 15,000 people 70 miles south of Tampa Bay on Florida's south-west coast, took the most savage hit with winds estimated at more than 145 mph. The local sheriff's office said '60 body bags' had been requested but as rescue teams with lifting machinery arrived at Punta Gorda and its neighbouring Gulf coast towns of Fort Myers and Port Charlotte, officials said that it was too early to know how many had died although 25 morticians with refrigerated trucks had been called in. There are 31 mobile home parks in Punta Gorda alone, at least two with up to 1,000 residents each.

The director of emergency services in the area, Wayne Sallade, said it would take days to trace those still unaccounted for. 'We believe there is significant loss of life,' he said.

Many residents are retired people living in mobile homes who decided not to leave after Charley was estimated at force two. In fact, it struck with unexpected ferocity at force four.

Computer predictions had also wrongly predicted Charley - which had already killed three people in Cuba and one in Jamaica - would hit the land in the Tampa Bay area and nearly two million people were urged to leave their seaside homes and head inland. But Charley swung south and drove across country for Orlando, the centre of the Disney tourist complex, and one of the areas to have attracted the largest number of evacuees. The area was also hit simultaneously by tornadoes.

'This is beautifully terrifying,' said Evan Lyon, 21, a Canadian tourist, as he filmed from the entrance area of the Renaissance Hotel. 'It's kind of fun but it's probably different if you live here.' Lyon, like many in the hotel, had been evacuated from Tampa.

The Fitzpatrick family, from Jordanhill in Glasgow, said that they had also been evacuated to Orlando from their holiday location in Longboat Key to the north of Port Charlotte only to find that the storm had followed them. They watched it lashing past from the hotel entrance. 'It was better than Disney,' said Christine Fitzpatrick.

Earlier in the week, the Florida Governor Jeb Bush he had declared a state of emergency and mobilised the National Guard. Yesterday Jeb Bush predicted that the cost of the damage would reach at least around $15 billion. One of the most comprehensive casualties was the airport at Lake Wales.

More than two million peo ple in the state lost power as Charley reached Daytona Beach on the state's Atlantic coast. Charley then headed for South Carolina as it left Florida, prompting further evacuations.

At the same time on the other side of the world, rescue workers in eastern China were still searching for the victims of massive typhoons that hit on Thursday, killing 115 people and injuring more than 1,800.

Residents in the rice-growing province of Zhejiang woke up to power outages, uprooted trees and collapsed houses after Typhoon Rananim cut a swathe of destruction with torrential rain and gale-force winds. More than 40,000 buildings were knocked down.

'The power supply has still not yet resumed in all parts of the city. It's hot and humid outside,' a nurse at the Taizhou city Central Hospital said.

The storm has weakened and moved inland to the province of Jiangxi, but the death toll is expected to rise, officials had said.

More than 8.6 million people had been affected by the storm. Most were injured by shattered glass or buried under collapsed houses, doctors said.

Officials had evacuated more than 460,000 people from coastal areas of Zhejiang province to escape the storm.

The typhoon caused more than 15.3 billion yuan (£1billion) damage in direct economic losses, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as saying yesterday.