Tsunami alert after huge quake off India

A massive magnitude 7.6 quake struck in the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands, yesterday evening, triggering a tsunami watch for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and Bangladesh, the US Geological Survey reported.

The USGS said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 7.7, was 20.6 33 kilometres deep and was centred 260 kilometres north of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami watch for the region.

The earthquake struck while typhoons were battering East Asia, yesterday, as parts of the region experienced their worst weather in half a century.

At least 42 people died and scores were reported missing as a result of the typhoons.

Most of those killed were in Taiwan when Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island, dumping a record 2.5 metres of rain over the weekend.

The storm hit mainland China Sunday afternoon, where it claimed at least six lives as authorities ordered more than a million people to evacuate several provinces.

In Japan, 13 people died in floods and landslides caused by torrential rain as Typhoon Etau bore down on the archipelago, forcing thousands into emergency shelters and disrupting travel networks.

Rescuers in Taiwan were battling to reach hundreds cut off by Morakot as widespread floods and mudslides knocked out railway and road traffic, cut power and water supplies and brought down bridges.

In the southeast, a six-storey hotel collapsed into a river. Staff and guests had already been evacuated.

At least 23 people were confirmed dead on the island and 56 others were still unaccounted for, rescue services said.

Officials estimated the storm had caused agricultural damage worth at least 3.4 billion Taiwan dollars (€70 million).

In the southern county of Pingtung thousands of people were trapped in three coastal townships while in Kaohsiung county a bridge collapsed, cutting off road access to a remote village of 1,300 residents.

Local TV reported that 200 homes in the village, Hsiaolin, were believed to have been buried in a mudslide. Specially trained rescuers and soldiers from an elite unit were helicoptered into the village, where survivors spoke of family members being engulfed by mud.

A 46-year-old man, identified only by his surname Weng, told the TVBS cable news network that he had narrowly escaped as he checked a makeshift wooden house near his home, but that 10 other family members disappeared in the mud.

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

Rescue authorities plan to send up to 160 rescuers to Hsiaolin.

Su Shen-tsun, one of 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," Mr Su said, "The whole village disappeared and even roofs of the houses could not be seen."

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

"This is the worst flooding in Chiayi in 50 years," county magistrate Chen Ming-wen said, referring to a typhoon that struck in August 1959, killing 667 people and leaving 1,000 missing.

In Japan's Hyogo prefecture more than 100 troops were deployed as a rain-swollen river burst its banks and inundated about 480 houses.

Brown waters engulfed the town of Sayo, ripping through the walls of buildings, toppling trees and flushing cars and furniture through the streets, TV images showed.

"It was so scary, the water came surging with a roar," a male resident told public broadcaster NHK from the disaster-hit town. "I've lived here for 60 or 70 years, but I've never seen a scene like this before."

Typhoon Etau, packing winds of up to 108 kilometres an hour, was forecast to hit the Tokyo area today, Japan's meteorological agency said, issuing nationwide heavy rain and landslide warnings.

Twelve of the country's dead and several missing were reported in Hyogo, said a police spokesman. "We are now concentrating on rescue operations while trying to check if more people are missing," he said.