Chinese rescuers search for victims in 6 buildings toppled by landslide

BEIJING (AP) — A massive landslide triggered by a deadly typhoon toppled at least six apartment buildings, burying an undetermined number of residents in eastern China, a state news agency said today.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the landslide in the town of Pengxi, in Zhejiang province’s Wenzhou city, was triggered by heavy rains carried by the storm Morakot, which already has killed six people and left three missing in mainland China.

The landslide destroyed at least six four-story apartment buildings at the foot of a mountain at 10:30 p.m. local time, Xinhua said.

Xinhua cited rescuers as saying it was not immediately known how many people were buried. Six people were pulled out alive, although one was in critical condition. Search operations were hampered by the huge amount of mud and rock, Xinhua said.

Typhoon Morakot, which means “emerald” in Thai, forced the evacuation of 1.4 million people in eastern China. It landed Sunday in Fujian province after slamming Taiwan over the weekend with as much as 80 inches of rain.

Taiwanese authorities put the confirmed death toll in Taiwan at 23, but that seemed certain to rise. The storm triggered a mudslide that buried a remote mountain village, leaving at least 400 people unaccounted for. Military rescue helicopters, unable to land because of the slippery ground, dropped food to desperate survivors.

The storm inflicted the worst flooding the island has seen in at least a half-century, submerging large swaths of farmland in brown muck and swamping city streets.