Storm-induced landslides and building collapses killed 15 people in Fujian province and left four missing, the provincial Water Resources Department said on its Web site.

Another eight perished in neighboring Guangdong province, it said, including a boy and girl aged five and six and their 68-year-old grandfather who were crushed when their home collapsed.

Taiwan and northern Vietnam were also pummeled by the storm's powerful winds and lashing rain, though it largely bypassed the port and financial center of Hong Kong.

Officials in Vietnam said 27 fisherman were missing since Thursday after three boats sank in Chinese waters during the storm.

In Taiwan, two women were swept to their deaths by floods in the southern region of Pingtung.

High waves also swept away three 17-year-old male students swimming in Japan's southern Okinawa island chain, leaving one dead and another missing, said coast guard spokesman Shoji Kawabata. The third was rescued.

The storm was headed toward northern Japan on Friday. It would continue to weaken but bring heavy rain to Japan and possible flooding in northern Honshu island on Saturday, forecasting service Weather Underground said.

Chanchu caused scores of homes to be flooded in China, and officials moved more than 1 million people to schools and the homes of relatives in Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Nearly 100,000 ships were ordered to return to harbor, Xinhua said.

Fujian estimated storm damage at $480 million, including damage to 9,600 homes and 2,116,658 acres of crops. There was no immediate word on damage estimates in Guangdong.

Television news showed violent waves pounding sea walls along China's coast. Reports said winds and rain damaged dikes, uprooted trees and brought down buildings along the Guangdong coast.

A Chinese rescue vessel deployed in the South China Sea saved eight sailors from a stranded Belgian-flagged freighter, then came to the aid of 24 Vietnamese fishermen, the official China Daily reported.

The rescue ship, Dejin, reached the 1,000-ton Pompei Thursday afternoon, a day after the freighter's engines failed off the Pratas, or Dongsha, islands, the newspaper said, citing the government's Salvage and Rescue Bureau. After bringing the crew on board and towing the Pompei, the Dejin went to help the Vietnamese, giving them food, fuel and water, the newspaper said.

Chanchu, which means "pearl" in Cantonese, headed out to sea shortly before midnight Thursday, just southeast of the commercial hub of Shanghai, which on Friday enjoyed unusually fresh breezes and clear skies.

T.C. Lee, an official with the Hong Kong Observatory, said Chanchu was the "most intense" typhoon on record to strike in the South China Sea in May, an early month in the annual cyclone season.

Lee said the early arrival of the year's first typhoon does not necessarily portend an unusually active storm season, and said the observatory forecast an average year of six to eight typhoons affecting the territory.

But a Chinese meteorologist quoted by Xinhua, Ding Yihui of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the storm appeared to be a sign of increasingly extreme weather events, a phenomena some scientists have linked to rising global temperatures.

"(We've had) Various explosions that are accompanied with very important emissions of great altitude, up to 4km high, with an important load of ashes," said Geophysical Institute spokesman Patricio Ramon. Authorities have declared a cautionary yellow alert zone around the 5.029-metre high volcano, 160km south of the capital city of Quito.

So far, officials say over 400 Ecuadoreans have been evacuated to temporary shelters. The Tungurahua volcano has been active since 1999 and has alternated periods of intense activity with some of relative calm. -

The quake was centered near the towns of Olympian Village and De Soto, said Julie Martinez, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Society's Earthquake Center in Golden, Colo. It occurred at 8:01 a.m.

Some residents reported hearing a loud noise, raising concerns about an explosion. But Martinez said reports like that are common, even with small quakes.

"It's just the sound from the ground moving," Martinez said. "A lot of times it is mistaken for an explosion."

The study, which appeared in a recent issue of Journal of the American Water Resources Association was conducted by Bradfield Lyon at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Nicholas Christie-Blick at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Yekaterina Gluzberg from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology.

They examined precipitation variability and drought in Rockland County, N.Y. over the last 100 years and found that factors such as development, population growth, and failing water supply systems played as significant a role as climate in creating the water emergencies.

"The balance between water demand and supply is now so finely tuned that even a few months of lower than normal precipitation is sufficient to trigger an emergency," said Christie-Blick. "Rockland County is ill-prepared to deal with the severe drought conditions that we know recur on a scale of tens to hundreds of years."

Located 24 miles northwest of New York City, Rockland County is in many respects a typical suburban county in the Northeast. In a landscape dotted with lakes and ponds, traversed by the Ramapo River and bordered by the Hudson River, the region might appear to be highly resilient to drought. However, between 1995 and 2002, the county declared three drought emergencies, the most recent of which one county official called "the worst on record."

Research shows, however, that, although unusually dry weather contributed to these emergencies, their severity indicates an increasing imbalance between water demand and supply driven largely by human factors.

"There were certainly droughts during the three recent water emergencies, but by several measures, they were far from exceptional," said Lyon. "In terms of accumulated rainfall deficit and duration, the drought from the 1960s was larger by a factor of three than what we've seen more recently."

By examining tree-ring and rain-gauge records, the researchers found that the most rapid increase in the population of Rockland County occurred over a 30-year period that was relatively wet for the region. Another significant cause was that the aging water supply system had not been upgraded to keep pace with growing demand, thus making it more vulnerable to failure, even within the normal range of climate conditions.

The result is that the criteria for declaring a drought emergency-when water demand is anticipated to exceed supply-are expected to be met in Rockland County with increasing frequency, a situation that is likely to become more common throughout the Northeast.

The researchers' findings also reinforce the fact that, instead of pointing to climate forces that are beyond local control, groups most concerned with water demand, such as community planners and developers, and those that focus on supply, such as water resource managers, must work together more effectively to come up with solutions.

"It's going to require taking a hard look at the options and deciding you either have to increase your supply or deal with the demand side of the equation to keep things in balance," said Lyon.

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a member of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, is one of the world's leading research centers examining the planet from its core to its atmosphere, across every continent and every ocean. From global climate change to earthquakes, volcanoes, environmental hazards and beyond, Observatory scientists provide the basic knowledge of Earth systems needed to inform the future health and habitability of our planet.

The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, aims to enhance society's ability to understand, anticipate and manage the impact of seasonal climate fluctuations, so as to improve the quality of life and the environment. From environmental monitoring and forecasting to climate-related risk management tools and practices in water resources, public health, agriculture, and food security, IRI and its partners focus on opportunities to build capacity for bringing climate information into regional planning and decision-making.

"I think it's a great relief because my experience of alligators is that, once they kill, they kill again, and I don't want someone else to go through what I went through," the woman's mother, Dawn Marie Yankeelov of Louisville, Ky., told the Ocala Star-Banner for Friday's editions.

A forensic tooth expert has to confirm that the bite marks on Campbell match the gator's teeth, said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Kat Kelley.

People with Campbell beat the animal until it released her body. The captured alligator bore scratch marks on its snout and a stab wound in its right eyelid, officials said.

Campell, 23, of Paris, Tenn., died from drowning and multiple blunt-force injuries, according to an autopsy.

Her death was the third fatal alligator attack in Florida this month. The state had 17 confirmed fatal attacks by the animals in the previous 58 years.