The typhoon triggered mudslides in mountainous regions of southern Taiwan [Reuters]

Large parts of the south of the island have been devastated, with roads, bridges and entire villages being washed away or buried in mud.

The government confirmed 38 people had died in the disaster.

'Relatives buried'

One Hsiao Lin survivor said from a temporary shelter in a neighbouring town that "the mountain just collapsed on us".

"I live lower down and survived, but all my relatives were buried," he said.

Efforts to search for people trapped in the storm were hampered on Tuesday when a rescue helicopter crashed in heavy fog with at least six people on board.

The six crew members were unaccounted for after the crash.

The helicopter was part of Taiwan's National Emergency rescue operation taking place in the south.

Morakot has now weakened to a tropical storm but it is still wreaking havoc on China's southeastern coast, triggering a massive landslide in Zhejiang province that toppled six apartment buildings burying an unknown number of residents late on Monday.

Buildings destroyed

Chinese state media said six survivors were pulled from the toppled Pengxi buildings

China's state-run Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday that the landslide in Pengxi town destroyed six four-storey buildings at the foot of a mountain at 10:30pm local time on Monday.

Six survivors were pulled out - one in critical condition - but rescuers did not yet know how many people were buried under the rubble and search operations were hampered by the amount of mud and rock.

The storm also sparked the evacuation of about 1.4 million people from Zhejiang and neighbouring coastal province Fujian, Chinese authorities said.

Francis Markus, a spokesman for the International Red Cross Federation and the Red Crescent Society in China, said from Beijing that things were "still very much on edge".

He said residents who had evacuated from the area were looking for the weather and terrain to stabilise before making their way back home.

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