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A bridge is damaged by floods brought on by Typhoon Morakot in Kaohsiung county, southern Taiwan August 9, 2009. [Agencies]

TAIPEI: At least 12 people were confirmed dead and 52 others were missing in Taiwan on Monday after Typhoon Morakot caused the island's worst flooding in half a century, the rescue services said.

The military was also trying to rescue thousands of people cut off by fallen bridges or raging rivers after the typhoon dumped a record 2.5 metres (100 inches) of rain on the island before it headed for the coast of Chinese mainland.

At least 32 people were also injured as Morakot, which means emerald in Thai, lashed the island with powerful winds and rain, disrupting railway and road traffic and bringing down bridges.

In central and southern Taiwan heavy rain caused widespread floods and mudslides, particularly in the county of Pingtung, where thousands of people were trapped in three coastal townships.

Local television reported that 200 homes in the village, Hsiaolin, are believed to have been buried in a mudslide.

Footage showed rescuers using a helicopter to pick up an elderly woman and her son trapped in the mud.

"It is not clear what the residents' situation is, but we are sure that Hsiaolin elementary school has been fully destroyed," Kaohsiung County Magistrate Yang Chiu-hsin told reporters.

Tens of thousands of other people were also stranded in the counties of Tainan and Chiayi.

"This is the worst flooding in Chiayi in 50 years," county magistrate Chen Ming-wen had said.

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

The typhoon has caused at least 3.4 billion Taiwan dollars (US$106.43 million) in agricultural damage while 110,000 houses were left without power and 850,000 homes without water, according to officials.

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

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 Sunday involving at least 1,200 troops, the island's defence agency said.

Television footage showed a hotel in Taitung, southeastern Taiwan, collapsing into a river. Staff and guests had already been evacuated, the reports said.

The powerful storm moved on towards Chinese mainland, landing in Fujian province at 4:20 pm (0820 GMT) on Sunday, the provincial meteorological bureau said.