(CNN) -- Hundreds of people remained unaccounted for Tuesday in Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot ravaged the island, triggering mudslides, damaging homes and killing at least 62 people.
Rescuers carry an elderly survivor of flooding Tuesday in southern Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot struck.
The number of missing remained elusive Tuesday night because of the breadth of destruction in Taiwan, officials said.
Morakot dumped 83 inches of rain on parts of the island over the weekend, unleashing the worst flooding there in half a century, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Buildings collapsed in the floodwater, and mudslides buried everything in their paths.
After hitting Taiwan Sunday, the storm roared on to mainland China and sowed chaos there, killing at least six people and displacing 1.4 million, authorities said.
Yet the death toll was much higher in Taiwan. And there were fears that it could rise amid reports that several hundred people may have been buried in mudslides that struck two villages in Kaohsiung County on the southern part of the island. 
In the city of Chiahsien, hundreds were feared buried alive by mudslides in an area inaccessible to rescue workers, according to the Central Emergency Operation Center. Helicopters rescued about 150 people and took them to a neighboring village, the center said.
Another mudslide wiped out the isolated village of Siaolin, population 1,313, said Wang Ke Jang, spokesman for the National Disaster Prevention and Protection Commission.
Rescue crews were trying to determine how many people were in the village at the time of the mudslide and what became of them.
One witness reported there was a roar of thunder about 6:15 a.m., and within five seconds the village and its residents had disappeared.
About 150 people had been discovered alive in the village by late Monday, but they couldn't be taken out because the rescue helicopters couldn't fly after dark, Wang said. Sixty were rescued Tuesday.
Authorities expressed their "deepest sorrow" about what happened in Siaolin and hoped for a "positive result," the National Disaster Prevention and Protection Commission said in a statement.
The Central Emergency Operation Center said the storm had killed at least 62 people and injured 35. The official number of missing stood at 58 on Tuesday.
The United States is "very concerned" about the situation but has not received a request for aid from the Taiwanese government, Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley told reporters Tuesday in Washington.
"We are a formidable asset to the region. ... As you have seen going back to the [2004] tsunami, we respond in a timely way to these tragedies," he said.
Authorities had found shelter for 8,900 of 10,576 people whom the storm left homeless, Wang said, but disaster struck even as efforts continued to help victims.
A rescue helicopter crashed Tuesday in the mountains in southern Taiwan's Pingtung County, tumbled into a river and was washed away. Crews recovered the bodies of all three people who were aboard, Wang said.
The typhoon destroyed bridges and turned roads into muddy swamps, making them inaccessible to search-and-rescue teams.
Helicopters were dropping food, medicine and water to help keep people alive as they awaited rescue. Wang said reservoirs were overflowing, and people were piling sandbags wherever they could. iReport.com: Volunteers mobilize to help typhoon victims
Prices of meat and vegetables increased about 20 percent in response to the limited supply, and officials said the government was releasing stockpiled food to force prices down.
A report from the center described dozens of deaths and missing-persons reports. Among the missing were three groups of people who had been fishing along the Tsengwen River.
A sudden rush of water "flushed away" a factory in Taitung County, and a worker was missing, authorities said.
"The most pressing needs now are providing shelter, food and clean water for those who have had to evacuate their homes," said Hank Du, executive director for the humanitarian group World Vision Taiwan. "We also want to make sure the children are secure and have a safe place where they are cared for."
The group had started to distribute food, cleaning supplies, raincoats, flashlights and other items to those displaced in Taiwanese communities.
The Taiwan Power Co. reported that power had been restored by Tuesday night to most of the 2 million households without electricity, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.
The storm caused $89 million in damage to the country's aquaculture industry, its worst loss in 18 years as a result of a typhoon, the news agency said, citing a report from the Taiwan Council of Agriculture.
The storm made landfall Sunday in China on the coast of Fujian province, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. Morakot's winds were clocked there at 73 mph (118 kph) in its eye, according to the province's meteorological bureau.
Reports said the typhoon caused mudslides that crushed homes and buried people in eastern China
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