At least 41 villagers, including eight children, were killed when a house collapsed in the town of Jinxiang, just an hour's drive from where the typhoon made landfall, Xinhua and a local official said.

Most of the victims were neighbors who thought the two-storey, concrete structure would be safer than their own wood-and-brick shelters, Xinhua said, adding that another two had died in a separate house collapse in the town.

"Many people here are taking shelter in schools and factories as their houses have been destroyed," the Jinxiang official said.

Damage to crops, power lines and infrastructure was evident in Cangnan county. Villagers were seen bringing out injured, and ice was being delivered by truck, presumably to preserve bodies.

"Lots of people were hurt here but my family are all okay," said Wu Yelian, an old woman doing a roaring trade selling instant noodles and canned drinks to drivers stuck in the heat in a jam on the narrow mountain road outside.

"I haven't seen a typhoon this strong in years. Last time we had a bad one, a dam collapsed and many people died."

Power was also cut in five Fujian towns close to where Saomai made landfall, Xinhua said.

Along a highway in Cangnan, trees were knocked flat, their branches and tops ripped off. Tiles and even bricks from flimsy farmhouses lay strewn about on the ground. Power and telephone lines were knocked down.

The typhoon crossed the coast with winds of 216 km (135 mph) per hour -- more powerful than a typhoon that hit Zhejiang in August 1956, killing more than 3,000 people.

Saomai was the eighth storm to hit China this year. Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) had graded Saomai a maximum-category 5 "super" typhoon, but reduced that to category 4 as it made landfall, the same category as Hurricane Katrina which devastated the U.S. Gulf coast last year.

Much of south China has been battered by typhoons and tropical storms this summer. Nearly 1,000 have been killed by rainstorms, mudslides, house collapses and floods.

Several leading politicians have denounced the apparent deliberate setting of fires, more than 120 of which were raging out of control across the Galicia region Friday as Rubalcaba arrived to assess the situation and consult with firefighters and troops straining to tackle the blazes.

Rubalcaba announced that 20 people had been arrested on suspicion of deliberately starting most of the blazes which have broken out in the past week, up from 14 on Thursday.

According to Rubalcaba, the arsonists "seem to be fully aware of what they are doing" as setting a fire "demands a degree of preparation."

He added the authorities were not ruling out that organised criminal groups were responsible.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero flew over the region Thursday to see the damage at first hand amid estimates of some 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of land going up in smoke -- double the annual average for this region.

There are about 10 holes in the field. Each hole has an entrance to a cave-like hollow place in the earth. Some of the tunnels are big enough for a person of medium height to stand up straight. According to one of the suppositions, all the underground passages are interconnected in a network. A few daredevils equipped with flashlights attempted walking across the tunnels.



Local residents have a number of theories to explain the origin of the tunnels. Some people believe the tunnels are the work of unidentified pranksters, others blame mysterious animals which reportedly dig holes in the ground. According to yet another theory, the tunnels may somehow be related to an earthquake that occurred in the area 3 years ago.

Krasnoyarsk scientists have not yet made any official statements as to the explanation of the phenomenon.