Survivors airlifted after killer storm

Military helicopters ferried stricken villagers to safety today from remote Taiwanese communities hit by a typhoon that has left at least 70 dead.

Hundreds more were still feared trapped by a torrent of mud and rock that buried homes after Typhoon Morakot.

Helicopters hovered over affected villages looking for signs of life. While rains were still falling, floodwaters receded today, and many of the aircraft were landing to send out squads of soldiers to look for survivors, photos released by the military showed.

One helicopter crashed into a mountain as it flew on a mission to rescue villagers from the island’s heavily wooded south, which was worst hit by the storm. Disaster official Chen Chung-hsien said it was unclear if the two pilots and one technician had survived the crash.

Morakot, which means “emerald” in Thai language, dumped as much as 80 inches of rain on Taiwan over the weekend, the worst flooding in 50 years. It then moved on to China, where authorities evacuated 1.5 million people and some 10,000 homes were destroyed.

Eight people have died in three provinces in eastern China, the Civil Affairs Ministry said.

Taiwanese authorities put the confirmed death toll from Morakot at 62 and listed 57 people as missing, but that does not include residents in the village of Shiao Lin, where several hundred remain unaccounted for after a mudslide buried their farming settlement on Sunday.

The exact number of people missing, including in worst-hit Shiao Lin, remained unclear. The village’s isolation complicated reporting about its fate. Shiao Lin was cut off after floodwaters destroyed a bridge about eight miles away. Access to the area is still restricted to the military.

Taiwan’s National Fire Agency said 100 villagers were buried alive when the mudslide hit, though it did not offer details to back up that assessment. Some of the 30 residents of Shiao Lin who were among those rescued yesterday said the figure was far higher – perhaps as many as 600.