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Families mourn hundreds of Taiwan's storm victims

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-15 16:31

SHIAO LIN: Families and friends paid homage Saturday to victims buried alive under mud and rock after the worst storm in more than 50 years pounded southern Taiwan unleashing flash flooding and massive landslides.

Some 380 people were buried in the hardest-hit village of Shiao Lin, more than half its entire population, after Typhoon Morakot pummeled the island last weekend causing tons of earth to come crashing down surrounding mountains.

Family members of flood victims hold portraits of their loved ones as they mourn for them at the site of a major landslide that destroyed the mountain village of Hsiao Lin in Kaohsiung County, southern Taiwan August 15, 2009. [Agencies]

TV images Saturday showed survivors from Shiao Lin being shuttled from shelters by pickup trucks to attend a memorial service a few miles (kilometers) away from their buried homes.

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Villagers cried, held each other tightly, and lit sticks of incense at the service to honor family and friends who perished in the storm.

"My parents, my brother ... my aunt ... there were 17 of them in total (who died)," an unidentified woman in her 20s told reporters.

Morakot dumped more than 80 inches (2 meters) of rain on the island and stranded thousands in villages in the mountainous south. A total of 15,400 villagers were ferried to safety and rescuers were working to save another 1,900 people.

The storm destroyed the homes of 7,000 people and caused agricultural and property damage in excess of NT$50 billion ($1.5 billion), according to official estimates.

The only structures standing in Shiao Lin, once a village of about 600 people, were a small brick home and a tiny temple. Large boulders were scattered where houses once stood and streams of mud continued to flow down the mountainous landscape. Helicopters flew overhead on their way to rescue survivors from nearby areas.