SHANGHAI, China (AP) – Tropical Storm Prapiroon killed nine people in southern China yesterday as the storm weakened further into a tropical depression, but continued to drench an area where 400,000 people had been evacuated.

Eight people were killed in Guangdong province, where the storm made landfall late Thursday while still a powerful typhoon, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Two men were crushed by walls blown down by the storm and a woman was hit by an advertising billboard that had come loose, according to Sina.com, a news website.

Three people were buried in a landslide and two others were struck by lightning, said the official China News Service.

The ninth person was killed by a landslide in the Guangxi region just to the south, where 840 houses and 337 hectares (830 acres) of farmland were destroyed by the storm, Xinhua said. The report said direct economic losses in Guangxi were estimated at about US$3 million (euro2.3 million).

Guangdong’s provincial government’s website didn’t mention the deaths, but said officials had sent 11 million mobile phone text messages to warn people of the storm’s arrival – standard procedure over the past year.

Guangdong has suffered heavily during this year’s highly active typhoon season.