The military was also trying to rescue thousands of people cut off by fallen bridges or raging rivers after the typhoon dumped a record 3.0 metres (120 inches) of rain on the island before heading for mainland China.

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.

The number of people on the missing list does not include those people buried in a Hsiaolin, a remote village of 1,300 residents in Kaohsiung county.

Local media said hundreds of villagers, who have lost contact with outside since the weekend after a bridge collapsed, might have been buried in mudslides.

The reports could not be confirmed by the National Fire Agency, which nevertheless confirmed that 23 people had been killed in central and southern Taiwan.

Su Shen-tsun, one the rescuers flown into Hsiaolin by helicopter, told reporters that he was surprised by what he had seen.

"I could hardly believe my eyes. For a while, I even suspected we had the wrong search target," Su said.

"The whole village disappeared and even roofs of the houses could not be seen," he said.

"Also, the whole mountain against which the village sat was flattened. How come this happened?"

Eight specially trained rescuers and 13 soldiers from an elite unit were helicoptered into Hsiaolin after rescuers earlier flew 45 people to safety and survivors spoke of family members being engulfed.

A 46-year-old man, identified only by his surname Weng, told the TVBS cable news network that 10 family members had disappeared in a mudslide from which he had narrowly escaped.

"All of them were gone," he said in tears.

Rescue authorities plan to send up to 160 rescuers to the village, an official from the disaster contingency centre surnamed Liang told AFP.

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

In Chungpu, a township in Chiayi, three people were buried alive, but workers later rescued one man from rocks and mud.

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

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

Typhoon Morakot has caused at least 5.0 billion Taiwan dollars (152.43 million US) in agricultural damage while 70,000 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 quoted a motorist who narrowly escaped plunging into the river as saying he feared that 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 1,600 troops, Taiwan's defence ministry said.

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

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

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