Severe Typhoon Megi pounded Taiwan yesterday, leaving at least seven dead and 25 missing, as Guangdong and Fujian braced for its onslaught and Hong Kong breathed a sigh of relief at being spared.
The missing include 19 tourists from Guangdong and a female guide from Beijing, whose tour buses were crushed by falling rocks during a landslide on a coastal highway in the eastern county of Ilan, officials said.
Taiwanese television footage showed rescuers digging out seven bodies buried by tonnes of mud at a Buddhist temple in the nearby town of Suao. Rescuers digging through the mud raced against time, as two other people were believed to have been buried as well, officials said.
Megi, the strongest typhoon to hit the northwest Pacific in two decades, killed at least 36 people in the Philippines before its outer rim dumped more than 1.1 metres of rain on Taiwan on its way to the mainland.
It also had Hong Kong on high alert for a time as early forecasts had it on course for a close or direct hit before it swung away to the north.
The Suao-Hualien Highway - which goes through the Taroko Gorge, a well-known scenic spot - took the worst hit, with more than 23 sections suffering landslides.