TAIPEI, Oct 23, 2010 (AFP) -Rescuers were Saturday frantically searching for two dozen people missing in Taiwan after Megi lashed the island killing at least 12, as the deadly typhoon made landfall in China.
Megi, the strongest storm to hit the northwest Pacific in two decades, killed 36 people after it battered the Philippines earlier in the week, barrelling via Taiwan as it menacingly moved towards China's southern coast.
Emergency workers in Taiwan dug up nine bodies buried under the debris of a temple swamped by mudslides while two more were found in a house and a port in northeastern Ilan county, the National Fire Agency said.
Among the dead were three nuns and a toddler, who were in the temple sheltering from the typhoon, which dumped a record one metre (three feet) of rain on the area in less than two days on Thursday and Friday.
In Ilan, soldiers and rescuers continued their search along a highway where landslides left at least 26 people missing after Megi whipped the island with sustained maximum winds of 175 kilometres (110 miles) per hour.
A Chinese tour guide and a Taiwanese driver were unaccounted for after their bus was hit by mudslides, although 21 passengers managed to escape, the fire agency said.
The local China Times quoted a mainland tourist as saying the guide and driver had stayed behind to help others escape before the bus was hit by falling rocks and sent tumbling down a slope.
Rescuers have found the wreckage of the bus but it was not immediately clear if the two were in the bus or not, said an official at the agency.
A search was also continuing for another bus carrying 19 mainland tourists and two Taiwanese. “We have dispatched special forces and other rescuers to continue the search... We won't give up on any chance of finding the missing,” President Ma Ying-jeou told reporters as he inspected affected areas.
CAPTION: More than 20 people, including Chinese tourists, remained unaccounted for after their buses were trapped along a badly damaged highway. All tourists in the bus pictured were rescued, the other buses in the convoy remain missing. (AFP)
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