TAIPEI, Taiwan — Typhoon Bilis ripped through Taiwan Wednesday leaving at least 11 people dead including eight orchard workers buried by a mudslide in a central area still recovering from a devastating earthquake.
Asia's most powerful storm of the year weakened as it moved onto the Chinese mainland.
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was preparing to cut short the final leg of an African tour to return and direct relief efforts. Chen, set for his final stop in Chad, planned to return home Friday, a day earlier than scheduled, vice premier Chang Chun-hsiung told reporters.
Officials said rescuers in the central county of Nantou unearthed the bodies of seven women and one man from a temporary dormitory that had been crushed by a torrent of mud and rock at the height of the storm overnight.
Television pictures showed some of the bodies recovered from the wreckage were still wrapped in blankets, indicating the workers at the family-owned orchard were asleep when the landslide hit.
Nantou was the center of a powerful earthquake in September 1999 that killed 2,400 people.
Vice President Annette Lu offered her sympathy to victims in Nantou, where strong winds had torn roofs off prefabricated houses for people made homeless by the September quake.
"It seems as if Nantou has a share in every natural disaster," Lu told reporters.
The National Fire Administration, which is in charge of disaster relief, said three people had been killed earlier, with flying debris among the causes.
The administration said about 80 people were injured across Taiwan and one doctor who had gone mountain climbing was listed as missing.
The Central Weather Bureau lifted all storm warnings for Bilis late Wednesday, and the typhoon had moved beyond Taiwan.
Taiwan's businesses, government offices, schools and financial markets were closed for a half day Tuesday and all day Wednesday.
Storm hits china mainland
The typhoon made landfall in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian at Jinjiang city late in the morning, where it damaged houses and crops but there were no reports of casualties so far.
The bureau said Bilis was well into the Chinese mainland, with its center some 124 miles northwest of the Taiwan-held island of Quemoy, or Kinmen.
The winds lost power as Bilis made its way over the mainland, slowing to sustained speeds of 47 miles per hour and gusts of 62 miles per hour, the bureau said.
"Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, hundreds of trees have been broken and some 60 percent of outdoor billboards have been destroyed," said an official at Fujian anti-flood headquarters.
"We expect heavy rains which can also inflict heavy damage this evening through tomorrow morning," she added. "In the past, damage caused by rains was no less than that by the winds."
Bilis had gusts of 146 miles per hour as it approached Taiwan Tuesday.
State utility Taiwan Power said just 156,000 homes remained without power, down from 1.1 million at the height of the storm. Power at northern Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, heart of the island's high-tech industry, was uninterrupted.
"This is one of the worst typhoons to directly affect Taiwan in many years, but I think everyone has paid a lot of attention to it and the disaster was lighter than we expected," Premier Tang Fei told reporters.
Bilis was more powerful than Typhoon Zeb, which killed 31 people in Taiwan in 1998.