Second Taiwanese village buried in mudslide
Some 900 people rescued but hundreds more are missing, feared dead
Image: Destroyed homes
AP
These homes are among those destroyed by flooding and mudslides in Taiwan's Kaohsiung County, an area that also saw an entire village buried by mud. Hundreds are missing and feared dead.
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CISHAN, Taiwan - As rescuers dug through one buried Taiwanese village in a desperate search for survivors, officials said a second village had also been swamped by a typhoon-triggered mudslide.
In China, meanwhile, the typhoon unleashed rain and flooding that destroyed more than 10,000 dwellings, officials said. A landslide in China's Zhejiang province late Monday flattened seven three-story apartment buildings that had been evacuated.
Taiwan's military said that more than 700 people were trapped, and possibly dead, in two southern villages engulfed by mudslides after Typhoon Morakot swamped the island.
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More than 90 people, including 50 in Taiwan, have been confirmed dead since Morakot and Tropical Storm Etau cut a swathe through the region. Three Taiwanese rescuers were feared dead when their helicopter crashed.
Those trapped in Taiwan included people buried by a massive landslide in Shiao Lin, a village of 1,000 in mountainous Kaohsiung County, according to a general involved in rescue operations.
Many were also trapped in a second village, Namahsia, said Gen. Hu Jui-chou. "Trapped means they could be dead or alive," Hu said by telephone.
'Mountain just fell off'
Morakot, which triggered the worst flooding in Taiwan in 50 years, dumped as much as 80 inches of rain at the weekend before moving on to China.
Some 900 people in three villages have been rescued and evacuated to the town of Cishan, the hub of rescue operations.
Some 200 survivors were from Shiao Lin and were found sheltering in a nearby field, said Gen. Hu. Meanwhile, more than 500 from Min Tsu village and 200 from Chin He village were also rescued. All three villages are near one another.
Shiao Lin residents rescued Tuesday escaped the mudslide by running to higher ground, from where they were plucked by helicopters. But those saved from other villages — which are miles away from Shiao Lin — had enough time to run to open ground.
One of the women ferried out Tuesday implored the military to do everything to rescue her family and friends. "There are still a lot of people trapped inside," Lin Mei-ying told television station ETTV. "Please go faster, so they can be saved."
Survivor Lee Chin-long said he watched as walls of mud and rock wiped out most of Shiao Lin.
"I was watching from my house upstairs. The whole mountain just fell off. When I saw that, I started to run," said Lee, speaking from a shelter in the nearby town of Cishan. "Almost every house was gone, except for a couple."
A woman rescued Monday told Taiwan's China Times newspaper that she fled with her husband and their baby from their two-story Shiao Lin home minutes before the mudslide buried it.
"We heard two loud bangs," the woman surnamed Chi was quoted as saying. "The sky was filled with dust like a volcanic eruption, and flood waters, mud and rocks streamed onto the roads."
Swept 1.2 miles
A 51-year-old man from Jilai village was swept 1.2 miles away when the mudslide that struck Shiao Lin rushed down a nearby mountain. According to news reports, he survived by holding on to a log.
Gen. Hu had earlier said that some residents might still be stuck near the village, with possibly 100 taking refuge in a tunnel.
Access to the area — in the southern reaches of the island's heavily foliated mountainous spine — is restricted to the military.
Shiao Lin's almost total isolation complicated reporting about its fate. Shiao Lin was cut off after floodwaters destroyed a bridge about eight miles away. A back road wending its way northward toward the mountain community of Alishan was also believed to be cut off, and with rain still falling in the area, prospects for an early resumption of overland travel were poor.
Other areas across Taiwan also saw landslides and flooding. A six-story hotel was washed away as were many homes.
"We saw an entire hotspring area being wiped out and vehicles buried," said Wu Chao-neng as he got off a helicopter in Cishan after being rescued from a landslide in another village.
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