Typhoon Morakot wreaks havoc across Asia

China relocated around one million people as Typhoon Morakot slammed into the coast after wreaking the worst storm havoc in half a century across Taiwan.

Torrential rain and high winds ploughed across the island of Taiwan, toppling buildings, including a hotel that tumbled into a surging river. The six-storey hotel, in Taitung County, eastern Taiwan, collapsed and plunged into a river early yesterday after floodwaters eroded its base. All 300 people in the hotel were evacuated from the building and uninjured.

Officials said that 12 people had been killed on the island, including one woman whose car was swept by a raging river, and at least 50 were still missing.

As Typhoon Morakot, which means emerald in Thai, made landfall in China, officials said that they have moved nearly one million people from the most dangerous locations on the route of the storm, which was packing wind speeds of up to nearly 73mph (118 km/h).
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One Taiwanese woman was in tears, reporting that her daughter and husband had plunged into a river in a flash flood. “My daughter call me twice saying, ‘We’re being washed away! Hurry, hurry!’ Then I lost them,” the distraught woman told reporters.

Officials said that the typhoon, hitting Taiwan at the height of the season, had dumped a record 2.5m (100in) of rain on the southern part of the island.

Chinese coastguards ordered all fishing boats to return to shore as the storm swept in. The devastating winds toppled houses in the coastal manufacturing hub of Wenzhou, killing a child and injuring four adults when houses collapsed under the force of the storm.

The worst damage was across Taiwan, where a typhoon in August 1959 killed 667 people. Gale-force winds were expected to batter the island for at least three days and waves were forecast to reach as high as seven metres. China had recalled more than 35,000 boats to port as the storm approached.

— At least 12 people were killed and ten others remain missing in western Japan today after Typhoon Etau slammed into the country bringing heavy rain that triggered floods and landslides.

The typhoon left 12 people dead in the Hyogo prefecture and many others missing in Hyogo, in the western part of Japan's main island. Around 2,200 people were evacuated from homes and stayed at public schools in the area.