A Taiwanese flight with 58 people aboard went sideways, clipped an elevated road and crashed into a river shortly after takeoff from the island’s capital of Taipei, killing at least 12 people.

The year’s most powerful typhoon was grinding closer to Hong Kong yesterday, forcing hundreds of flights to be cancelled and shutting down shipping after pummelling island communities in the Philippines and Taiwan with heavy rains and fierce winds.

A VIETNAMESE woman searching for her father worked at his home in Taiwan for seven months without realising who he was before the relationship came to light, her father and police said yesterday.

Powerful storm Chanchu killed two children in southern China today to bring its death toll in Asia to 39, while flooding scores of homes in an area where more than 600,000 people were evacuated.

A Taiwanese boat has arrived in the Chinese port of Xiamen on the first legal and direct crossing from Taiwan in more than 50 years.