Relief Effort Launched After Devastating Storm

China mobilized more than 20,000 soldiers and paramilitary police officers for relief efforts after Typhoon Saomai, the strongest storm to strike the country in 50 years, killed at least 104 people, blacked out cities and wrecked more than 50,000 homes.

An additional 190 people were missing after the storm’s 170-mph gusts battered areas where more than 1.6 million people had been evacuated before Saomai hit Thursday.

Saomai weakened to a tropical depression as it drenched the country’s southeast.

However, torrential rains were forecast in a swath of China’s south stretching from coastal Zhejiang and Fujian inland to the poor rural provinces of Jiangxi and Anhui.