BEIJING: China rushed nearly one million people out of harm’s away as Typhoon Morakot slammed into its coast today after triggering Taiwan’s worst flooding in 50 years, leaving at least four people dead.

After also leaving tens of thousands trapped in Taiwan, the powerful storm landed in China’s Fujian province at 4:20 pm (0820 GMT), the provincial meteorological bureau said.

Earlier in the day, a four-year-old child died in the Chinese city of Wenzhou after his family’s house collapsed in heavy rains and winds, the official news agency Xinhua reported.

The child was buried along with four adults

in debris and died after emergency treatment failed, Xinhua said,

citing the city’s flood-control headquarters.

Morakot pounded Taiwan over the weekend

with powerful winds and torrential rain, forcing the government to deploy the military to rescue stranded residents, officials said.

Television footage showed a woman in

tears reporting that her daughter and husband

had plunged into a river when a flash flood swept away their car in the central county of Nantou.

“My daughter called me twice saying: ‘We’re being washed away! Hurry, hurry!’ Then I lost them,” the sobbing woman told reporters.

Officials said three people were confirmed dead and at least 31 were missing as Morakot dumped a record 2.5 metres of rain on the southern county of Pingtung.

At least 10,000 people were trapped in three coastal townships, Pingtung deputy magistrate Chung Chia-pin said, and officials said tens of thousands of other people were also trapped in the counties of Tainan and Chiayi.

“This is the worst flooding in Chiayi in 50 years,” county magistrate Chen Ming-wen told reporters.

A typhoon that struck Taiwan in August 1959 killed 667 people and left some 1,000 missing.

Across the Taiwan

Strait, more than 505,000 people were evacuated from the Fujian coast and another 490,000 were relocated in the neighbouring province of Zhejiang, Xinhua reported.

Zhejiang issued a red alert earlier today as it registered a maximum wind speed of nearly 180 kilometres an hour around the coastal city of Taizhou, Xinhua said.

Gale-force winds were expected to persist for at least three days and waves were forecast to reach as high as seven metres.

More than 35,000 ships were called in to port as the storm approached, Xinhua quoted Zhejiang flood-control headquarters as saying.

A cargo ship was stranded in rough seas and rescuers were trying to rescue its eight sailors, the agency reported.

Among the missing in Taiwan were 14 workers who disappeared when their makeshift shelter beside a river in southern Kaohsiung county was washed away by rising floodwaters early today.

A bridge linking Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties collapsed and a local television station cited a motorist who narrowly escaped plunging into the river as saying he feared two cars had fallen in.

Armoured vehicles and marine landing craft, as well as rubber dinghies, were mobilised in a rescue operation involving at least 1,200 troops, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.

Television footage showed a six-storey hotel in Taitung, southeastern Taiwan, collapsing in the floods. Staff and guests had already been evacuated,

the reports said.

Child killed in China

BEIJING: A four-year-old child died in China on Sunday after his family’s house collapsed during typhoon Morakot, which earlier left four dead in Taiwan, Xinhua reported.

Heavy rains and winds destroyed five houses in the city of Wenzhou on Sunday morning as Morakot approached the Chinese coast, the official news agency said.

The child was buried along with four adults in debris and died after emergency treatment failed, Xinhua said, citing the city’s flood-control headquarters. — AFP