Any misstep and the powerful waters would sweep the 53-year-old away.

But a week after Typhoon Morakot destroyed the concrete footbridge that linked her southern Taiwanese village Hsinfa to the outside world, Wang decided she would risk anything -- even her life -- to find her missing loved ones.

"I don't care about the danger. I just want to see my people. Four members of my family have already been buried alive, and there are 10 more trapped behind there," Wang said, tears streaming down her face as she pointed to a hill across the river.

On the other side, broken roads, flattened plantations and endless swathes of rubble awaited Wang, one of the first to cross the newly-built bamboo bridge.

Fallen electricity poles protruded from the soft mud, marking what were farms, hot springs and nature reserves only eight days earlier.

The destruction wreaked by Morakot -- to homes, crops, roads, bridges, electricity and telephone lines -- will cost an estimated 3.4 billion US dollars to replace, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said Friday.

The cabinet has promised a special budget to help cover the typhoon damage.

At the rickety bamboo bridge, rescue workers looked on disapprovingly, but said they could not stop the desperate villagers.

"What they are doing is extremely dangerous. The mudslides can return any time if the rain on the upper river grows heavier," fireman Kevin Kuo said.

"But how can we stop them from finding their relatives?" he said, filming the risky crossing with a hand-held camera "in case of more injuries or casualties."

Before the bamboo bridge idea was hatched, some villagers had tried to wade across the river in bare feet. But rescuers had to be pull them from the waters as the water's rapids threatened to tear them away.

A few days after Moraket hit, survivors stranded in Hsinfa sent a chilling message to the world by putting up a yellow banner with the words "32 deaths S.O.S." in red ink at the village entrance.

Despite a week of round-the-clock rescue efforts, the 19 firemen from Tainan have been unable to figure out how to transport the stranded villagers to safety. Many dead bodies remained unfound, buried too deep in the mud, they said.

"In an earthquake, there is hope as the chance is that victims are trapped in the gaps between the rocks and rubble," Kuo said, adding the mud in places was as high as three- to five-stories.

"But in a mudslide, any hole will be filled by mud. The survival rate of those trapped inside is, basically zero," he said.

Wang's younger sister, Demi, said she rushed to the village from the city after seeing television footage of the devastation.

Their uncle had warned relatives to leave the village before the typhoon hit, she said.

"But they decided to stay put. Our family have already been in the village for more than a century. They treat every villager there as a family member."

"They thought if they could survive all the typhoons in the past, they would also survive this one," the 40-year-old said.

The magnitude of destruction is apparent in almost every corner of Liukuei, which literally means "six turtles" and refers to the six road tunnels that lead to the township.

In the aftermath of the typhoon, only rescue teams, media crews, and trucks loaded with camouflage-clad soldiers ventured into the wasteland.

"I haven't had a proper sleep for ages. It is going to take us a long time to rebuild this town," a weary-eyed police officer said.

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