Typhoon death toll reaches 85

Thousands of soldiers searched for bodies, cleared roads and distributed relief supplies today as the death toll climbed to 85 from South Korea’s most powerful typhoon in at least a century.

At least 30 people remained missing and were feared dead.

Helicopters ferried relief supplies to flooded towns and villages in the southeastern part of South Korea, which was mauled by Typhoon Maemi on Friday night.

“Although some functions have been paralysed, let’s try to set a new record in normalising the distribution of goods,” President Roh Moo-hyun said after touring Busan, the country’s second largest city and worst-hit urban area.

With winds of 135 mph, the typhoon was so powerful that it lifted shipping containers in the air, toppled gigantic cranes and flipped an evacuated cruise ship on its side in Busan.

The National Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters said 85 people were confirmed dead nationwide and 30 were listed as missing and feared dead. Yonhap news agency said the toll could rise to 120.

The typhoon exited South Korea on Saturday and had dissipated in the Sea of Japan by today. Seoul, the capital, was unaffected.

The government released more than £750million for relief and recovery work across the country, the disaster headquarters said.

Of about 25,000 people who fled their homes to seek shelter, about 7,000 remained in schools and other public facilities.

More than 5,600 soldiers were involved in the recovery.

Civil authorities armed with bulldozers cleared broken highways of rubble dumped by landslides while residents armed with shovels cleared sludge from their homes and streets.

Maemi – Korean for cicada – dumped up to 17.8 inches of rain and was the most powerful typhoon since Korea began keeping records in 1904, topping the 129.6mph wind speed record set by Typhoon Prapiroon in 2000.