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China landslide crushes buildings Taiwan landslide 'buries dozens'
(about 4 hours later)
At least six apartment blocks have collapsed following landslides in eastern China, trapping an unknown number of people, state media report. Rescue workers in Taiwan are searching for dozens of people feared buried in a landslide triggered by Typhoon Morakot that swept into a mountain village.
Officials say they have managed to pull six people alive from the rubble in the town of Pengxi in Zhejiang province. The typhoon struck Taiwan on the weekend, dumping record amounts of rain and washing out roads and bridges, leaving at least 41 people dead.
The landslides were triggered by heavy rains caused by Typhoon Morakot, which has swept across parts of East Asia. A helicopter with three people on board has crashed while on a rescue mission in the south of Taiwan, officials said.
Meanwhile in Taiwan, hundreds of people are feared dead after a mudslide caused by the typhoon buried a small village. The storm also hit mainland China, where six people were reported killed.
Two died when a landslide submerged a group of houses late on Monday.
It was initially believed that the buildings were apartment blocks, with many families buried, but Chinese officials later confirmed that they were one-storey homes which had mostly been evacuated before the landslide.
'The mountain fell'
Helicopters have been dropping rescuers into the village of Shiao Lin, in the mountains of southern Taiwan, and winching out residents, trapped for several days by landslides that have cut road access and buried many houses.
See map of storms in East Asia See map of storms in East Asia
'One second' About 150 people who survived Sunday's landslide by reaching higher ground have now been pulled out of the area to safety.
Chinese reports say it was 2230 local time (1430 GMT) on Monday when the landslide hit Pengxi, near Wenzhou city. The village is home to about 1,000 people but officials are not certain how many were there when the landslide hit.
Survivors have spoken of hundreds of people still buried in their homes.
"I was watching from my house upstairs," said one survivor, Lee Chin-long.
Animated guide: Typhoons In pictures: Storms hit East Asia Eyewitness: Pacific storms Animated guide: Typhoons In pictures: Storms hit East Asia Eyewitness: Pacific storms
A witness told Chinese television it took "one second" for the mud and rocks to engulf the four-storey apartment buildings. "The whole mountain just fell off. When I saw that, I started to run. Almost every house was gone, except for a couple."
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville says six or seven apartment blocks with an estimated 28 families in each are buried in the rubble. A helicopter with three people on board involved in a mission to rescue residents of a different mountain village, was reported to have crashed in bad weather. It was not known if there were any survivors.
Two people have been confirmed dead so far and the toll is expected to rise, he adds. Typhoon Morakot dropped some two metres (80 inches) of rain on Taiwan this weekend, causing the worst flooding in five decades.
Xinhua reports that the rescue operations are being hampered by the large amounts of debris that have fallen onto them. Rivers have spilled over their banks, washing away buildings, roads and bridges, cutting power lines and flooding city streets as well as farmland. Losses to the farming industry are estimated at $152m (£92m).
Morakot weakened to a tropical storm early on Monday but it has still been lashing south-eastern China with heavy rain. After slamming Taiwan, the storm moved across the strait to China where it has weakened in force.
ANALYSIS Quentin Sommerville, BBC News, Beijing About 1.4 million people were evacuated from coastal areas of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.
Normally it's the coastal areas that are worst hit with these kind of storms, but Pengxi is a bit further inland. Two people were killed in the town of Pengxi in Zhejiang when a landslide struck about seven houses late on Monday. Officials said six people were pulled alive from the rubble but two later died.
This of course will give rise yet again to questions of building quality in China. We saw in the Sichuan earthquake last year that many schools collapsed because they had not been built to proper standards.
Not just that, but there is a question of over-development. This is a country that is growing at an incredible rate.
Zhejiang is a fairly wealthy province. It is a big manufacturing area and lots of new apartments have been built there - but have they been built in the right place?
More than one million people have been evacuated from their homes and six deaths have been reported - including four in Zhejiang province, and two others in Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.
State news agency Xinhua said hundreds of villages and towns had been flooded and more than 2,000 houses and buildings had collapsed.
Before ploughing into China, Typhoon Morakot dropped some 2 metres (80in) of rain on Taiwan this weekend, causing the worst flooding in five decades.
Rescue operations resumed on Tuesday morning to find survivors from a mudslide on Sunday in the south-western mountain village of Shiao Lin that buried about 600 people.
The BBC's Cindy Sui, who is in the area, says about 50 people have been rescued and another 150 found alive elsewhere in the village.
Helicopters were dropping food and trying to air-lift survivors from the village, where roads have been washed away, and power and water supplies cut.
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The rescue operation continues in Taiwan Rescuers worked through the night to pull people from the rubble in Pengxi
Elsewhere in Taiwan, the number of confirmed deaths is 38, with dozens more injured and missing, officials said. Four other deaths were reported in Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.
Overall, about 6,000 houses were destroyed and more than 380,000 hectares of farmland flooded, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs announced. The storm has caused as much as $1.3bn dollars in damage, the ministry said.
Morakot also dumped heavy rains in the north of the Philippines, killing at least 22 people last week.Morakot also dumped heavy rains in the north of the Philippines, killing at least 22 people last week.
In Japan, Typhoon Etau - packing winds of up to 108km (67 miles) an hour - has set off flash floods and landslides that have killed at least 12 people. In Japan, Typhoon Etau - bringing winds of up to 108km (67 miles) an hour - set off flash floods and landslides that have killed at least 12 people.
It is forecast to hit the Tokyo area on Tuesday, amid nationwide warnings of heavy rain and landslides. It was forecast to hit the Tokyo area on Tuesday, but turned eastward into the Pacific Ocean after dropping heavy rain.
Typhoons and tropical storms are frequent in the region between July and September.Typhoons and tropical storms are frequent in the region between July and September.
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