Tropical Storm Bilis - Aftermath

Aftermath

Bilis and its associated flooding left over 400,000 people homeless, and over 2 million more had to be evacuated in the face of rising waters. Following the storm, the Red Cross Society of China provided food, blankets, and water purification kits to over 100,000 Hunan residents in mass evacuation shelters. The relief effort was complicated by an earthquake in Yunnan, as well as three more tropical cyclones: Typhoon Kaemi, Typhoon Prapiroon, and Typhoon Saomai. All of the storms were stronger than Bilis, and exacerbated flooding and other problems in the region.

Because of the sudden large increase in the number of reported deaths in Hunan in a matter of hours, Chinese government officials accused local officials of covering up damage and casualty details. The Ministry of Civil Affairs sent a team to Hunan to investigate the allegations, and issued a notice stating that anyone found to be covering up any damage details would be held accountable.

The China Meteorological Administration released a press release after the storm and gave four reasons for the extensive damage. First, the storm decelerated after landfall and maintained its identity for 120 hours while moving south of due west. Secondly, the storm was asymmetric and rainfall concentrated in the southern semicircle. Also, the storm interacted with the active monsoon over the South China Sea, and the Hong Kong Observatory reported a 1-hour rainfall total of 115.1 mm (4.5 inches), a new record. Finally, previous rainfall had made the area wetter than normal and more prone to flooding.

At the 39th annual meeting of the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee in Manila in December 2006, the name Bilis was retired, along with four other names. In December 2007, the committee selected the name Maliksi to replace Bilis on the Western Pacific basin name lists beginning in 2008.