The typhoon had fizzled out by Friday morning and areas in China's southern and eastern coasts had lifted their typhoon alert as mop up operations got under way.

But the region was left counting the human and financial cost of the strongest typhoon to have struck the South China Sea area in May, with at least 26 dead in Vietnam, 23 in China, and 41 last week in the Philippines.

The 26 fatalities in Vietnam were fishermen and another 245 were unaccounted for late Friday after the ferocious storm sank at least nine boats in the South China Sea.

"China has joined Vietnam in the search, but we haven't heard whether they have found anyone," an official at the National Search and Rescue Centre in Hanoi told AFP.

Chanchu hit the ships from early Wednesday, cutting radio contact. At least 70 sailors were able to seek refuge on the Chinese island of Dong Sa.

The storm sank at least nine vessels, most of them from the central city of Danang and the nearby provinces of Quang Nam, Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh, a national border guard official said.

At least 79 people were rescued from the sea, according to reports.

In Danang, border official Nguyen Da Luong said two vessels carrying the bodies of 18 fishermen were due to arrive at the port within about four days.

"Six vessels from Danang sank near Taiwan," he said. "They had hidden from the typhoon, but then it changed course and strong waves capsized the boats."

In Quang Ngai, border guard official Dang Le said 27 people from his province remained unreachable by radio and eight more bodies had been found.

"Many of the fishermen who survived the typhoon by sheltering on Dong Sa island went back to sea to help in the rescue effort," he said. "We don't have an exact number of how many fishermen survived the storm."

In China, eight people died in Guangdong, with another 15 killed in Fujian, Li Baojun, director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs' disaster relief section, told AFP.

Typhoon Chanchu had already killed 41 people and left thousands homeless when it tore through the Philippines last week.

More than one million people in China were evacuated from dangerous coastal areas as the typhoon approached -- 709,000 in Fujian and another 327,000 in Guangdong.

Li said Friday most of the evacuees had returned home but 10,000 to 20,000 houses were destroyed.

"We have adopted three measures to handle this problem," Li said.

"One is to ask them to stay at their relatives' homes until their own house is rebuilt. Second is to ask them to stay in our public buildings. Third, for those living in distant areas, we will provide them with tents."

Evacuees in typhoons are typically put in schools, gymnasiums and other government buildings.

Officials were still counting the economic losses from the typhoon.

Crops were destroyed, farm animals killed, and houses collapsed and damaged. The storm also uprooted trees, and wrecked infrastructure, disrupting power and water supplies.

Fujian province alone estimated Thursday its losses had reached 3.8 billion yuan (475 million dollars), with more than three million people affected and 9,600 rooms destroyed.

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