Mudslides spread havoc in typhoon's wake

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BEIJING, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Mudslides struck China and Taiwan, raising the toll of dead and missing, as the two countries battled rains and floods from Typhoon Morakot, officials said.

In Taiwan, where floods and rains have already killed at least 23 people and left 56 missing since the typhoon struck Friday, a massive land and mudslide Monday smashed into the village of Xiaolin in Taiwan's Kaohsiung County.

Rescuers said at least 180 residents in the village of about 600 survived the mudslides and 76 had been moved to safety Monday afternoon, Taipei Times reported. But that still left the fate of the others unknown.

Similar landslides had been reported in other parts of the country that have been hit by record rainfall in the past three days.

Taiwanese military and other rescuers were trying to reach or find hundreds of people stranded or reported missing in the mountainous areas of southern Taiwan, where fallen bridges and raging rivers were hampering their efforts, Taipei Times reported.

In China, a massive landslide Monday night brought down up to seven apartment buildings in eastern Pengxi Township in Taishun County in Zhejiang Province, burying an unknown number of residents, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, quoting local authorities.

The report said rescuers had pulled six people alive from the debris by Tuesday with one of them reported in critical condition. Authorities were trying to determine how many were still trapped in the huge pile of mud and rock.

The landslide was triggered by continuous torrential rain from Typhoon Morakot, which has already killed six people and left three others missing since making landfall in China's eastern coastal region Sunday.

The storm affected more than 8.8 million people in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces and forced authorities to relocate another 1.4 million people.

The storm destroyed more than 6,000 houses and caused flooding of more than 387,000 hectares of cropland, authorities said. Direct economic losses have already reached about $1.3 billion, Xinhua said.