Typhoon cuts electricity for 400,000 in Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A typhoon lashed Taiwan with intense winds and rains Saturday, cutting power to thousands of homes and leaving at least two men missing in the capital.

Mainland China was bracing for the storm next, with authorities ordering tens of thousands of people to higher ground.

In the northern Taiwanese port city of Keelung, which bore the brunt of Typhoon Krosa's 114 mph winds, about 400,000 households lost electricity, officials said.

Officials said relief workers pulled six survivors from a house buried by a landslide in a hillside Taipei suburb - but they were still searching for two men believed buried in the debris.

Heavy rain also triggered a landslide that blocked a major highway in the east of the island, the United Evening News reported.

And about 2,000 households suffered power failures in northern Miaoli County, where a raging river destroyed a village bridge, officials said.

Cathay Pacif ic Airways canceled flights from Taipei to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. Dragon Airlines also canceled flights between Taiwan and Hong Kong.

In China, more than 138,000 people were evacuated and 27,000 fishing boats were called back to port in coastal Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, the national flood control office said in a notice on its Web site.

Krosa was forecast to strike somewhere between northern Fujian and southern Zhejiang late today, the notices said.

In Fujian province, officials ordered tourists away from coastal islands and seaside scenic spots by Saturday evening. Neighboring Zhejiang province issued a similar order late Friday, with 2,500 people being evacuated from an island near the city of Wenzhou, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Ferries, sightseeing boats and fishing vessels were also ordered to head for safe harbors, the provincial governments said in notices posted on their Web sites.

In Vietnam, meanwhile, the death toll from Typhoon Lekima - which hit the country's central coast late Wednesday - rose to 32, with another 16 people missing, disaster officials said.

Authorities said they expected the death toll to go even higher.

Nine bodies were recovered Saturday in the worst-hit central province of Nghe An, said provincial disaster official Tran Gia Danh.

"This is the worst flood to hit our province since 1988," Danh said. "We expect the death toll from flooding in the province to rise as communication with some villages remains disrupted."

Lekima, named after a local fruit, also damaged about 77,000 homes, the government said.