Typhoon is battering Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Typhoon Aere battered northern Taiwan on Wednesday, triggering a mudslide that buried a church and killed a father and his daughter as the storm's eye churned toward China, where nearly 250,000 people were being evacuated. The new fatalities pushed the death toll to nine.

Aere was spending most of Wednesday drenching parts of central Taiwan that were prone to deadly flooding and landslides. As forecasts showed the typhoon heading toward China, authorities there evacuated 249,000 people from coastal areas, the Chinese government said.

Aere's center was bearing down on China's southern province of Fujian and was expected to pound the area through today, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. The typhoon would also soak parts of Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces, Xinhua said.

The typhoon was expected to be the second-strongest storm to hit China this season after Typhoon Rananim, which devastated the Chinese coast south of Shanghai.

Nearly 31,500 fishing boats were called back to Chinese ports, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Taiwan, the mudslide victims were seeking refuge from the storm in the church in the northwestern county of Hsinchu when the landslide hit, the National Disaster Relief Center said. Officials had few details about the father and daughter killed or four others who were missing.

Disaster officials also said flood waters swept away a 72-year-old man in central Nantou county, while 15 others were injured by falling trees or other debris.

Torrential rains that soaked the island throughout the night washed away roads in mountainous Hsinchu county, trapping at least 5,000 people in remote villages, the state-funded Central News Agency said.

Howling winds rattled windows in the capital, Taipei, throughout the night, and power lines were ripped away from their poles. Islandwide, about a million homes were without electricity or water, officials said.

Schools and financial markets were closed for a second straight day as the slow-moving storm whirled just 60 miles northwest of Taiwan's northern tip.

At least 5,000 people were evacuated from villages in mountainous central Taiwan, ravaged just weeks ago by typhoon Mindulle, which killed 29 people. Soggy mountain slopes began crumbling Tuesday, burying roads with boulders, mud and twisted trees.

"The downpour continued all night and we didn't sleep," a woman in Hsinyi village in central Nantou told the TVBS cable news as she looked at a mountain road flooded with brown water.