Taiwanese legislators criticised the government yesterday for failing to seal off a mountain road during landslides, as rescuers found body parts that might belong to some of the 20 mainlanders missing since Severe Typhoon Megi struck the island on Thursday.
Nineteen tourists from Guangdong and a tour guide from Beijing, plus a second tour guide and two drivers all from Taiwan, have not been seen since landslides triggered by the storm saw rocks crash on to the road used by two tour buses.
Taiwanese authorities sent more than 300 military and police to search the Suao-Hualien Highway and coastline hit by landslides yesterday.
They initially found a severed hand in a ravine 300 metres below the road where tour leader Tian Yuan, from Beijing, and a Taiwanese driver of one bus are missing, the National Fire Agency said. Later, beside a rocky beach, officials found another headless torso, plus a bag, believed to have been used by Tian, containing her passport and those of 19 tourists.
Tian's bus was hit by falling rocks on Thursday afternoon and although all 19 mainland tourists on board escaped through broken windows, Tian and driver Tsai Ming-chih failed to get out before the bus fell into the ravine. The tourists spent the night in the open before being rescued.
'We have not ruled out the body parts being those of either Tian or Tsai and have asked Tian's mother and Tsai's relatives to provide their DNA for checking,' an official said.
Rescuers later found a headless torso floating 15kilometres off the coast, but the official said it was too soon to say if it was linked to the 21people still missing from a second tour bus. They include 19 tourists from Guangdong, a Taiwanese tour leader and Taiwanese bus driver.