1 million flee as typhoon slams China

BEIJING — A typhoon slammed into China's east coast Sunday, flooding entire villages, destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of nearly a million residents after lashing Taiwan with torrential rains that caused the island's worst flooding in 50 years.

Rescuers on rubber dinghies, wearing life jackets and crash helmets, helped stranded villagers in hard-hit areas of China, while officials elsewhere cycled through floodwaters to deliver food to residents trapped in their homes.

Only rooftops and the highest tree branches were visible above the murky brown water that engulfed part of China's southern Cangnan county. Homes were destroyed and at least one child died after a house collapsed on him in heavy rain in Zhejiang province.

In southern Taiwan, a six-story hotel toppled into a rain-swollen river whose rushing waters had knocked out its foundations.

Typhoon Morakot made landfall in China's Fujian province Sunday, carrying heavy rains and winds of 74 miles (119 kilometers) per hour, the China Meteorological Administration said.

Taiwan, meanwhile, was recovering after the storm dumped more than 80 inches of rain on some southern counties on Friday and Saturday, the worst flooding to hit the area in half a century, the Central Weather Bureau reported.

Taiwan's Disaster Relief Center said a woman was killed when her vehicle plunged into a ditch in Kaohsiung county in heavy rain Friday, and two men drowned in Pingtung and Tainan. It said 31 were missing and feared dead. Crashing floodwaters had washed away roads and bridges in the island's south.

In western Japan, at least nine people were killed and nine others missing Monday after Typhoon Etau slammed into the country bringing heavy rain that triggered floods and landslides.

The typhoon left eight people dead in Hyogo prefecture, police official Shigekazu Kamenobu said. He could not provide details but said many were caught in raging waters.

"At least one man was swept away in a river while he was in a car. His body was later found inside the vehicle," Kamenobu said.

Nearly 1 million people were evacuated from China's eastern coastal provinces by early Sunday — more than 490,000 people in Zhejiang and 480,000 in neighboring Fujian. Authorities in Fujian called 48,000 boats back to harbor.

Thirty-nine flights from Wenzhou city in Zhejiang were canceled Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency said.