CISHAN, Taiwan — Military helicopters ferried stricken villagers to safety Tuesday from remote Taiwanese communities hit by Typhoon Morakot that left at least 70 dead, but hundreds were still feared trapped by a torrent of mud and rock that buried their homes.
Choppers hovered over affected villages looking for signs of life.
While rains were still falling, floodwaters receded Tuesday, and many of the aircraft were landing to send out squads of soldiers to look for survivors, photos released by the military showed. Special forces found more than 900 people who had fled three villages in the south.
Morakot, which means “emerald” in Thai, dumped as much as 80 inches of rain over the weekend on Taiwan, causing the worst flooding in 50 years. It moved on to China, where 1.5 million people were evacuated and 10,000 homes destroyed.
