Taiwan scrambles to rescue 700 in landslide villages as death toll reaches 66

Taiwan Wednesday began airlifting to safety more than 700 people found alive in a trio of villages flattened by muddy landslides, as the island's death toll from Typhoon Morakot hit 66. The military launched the helicopter operation in the battered island's south after the region was hit by its worst flooding in half a century, inundating entire villages in water and mud and cutting off all access by road. Officials are unable to confirm how many people had been buried or killed by the landslide in Hsiaolin and in two other remote villages nearby. - AFP