The death toll from typhoon Chanchu rose to about 88 Friday as the deadly storm headed across the South China Sea towards Taiwan.
Hundreds of people are missing in the wake of the typhoon, the strongest to ever hit Southeast Asia in the month of May.
Winds of up to 170 km/h have left a trail of destruction across the Philippines, Vietnam and southeast China, causing landslides, destroying houses and sinking hundreds of fishing boats.
Villagers walk through a house hit by typhoon Chanchu in Zhangzhou, in east China's Fujian province, on Thursday.
(EyePress/ Associated Press)
More than one million people have fled their homes in recent days.
The storm was downgraded to the level of a tropical storm Friday, and Taiwanese authorities lifted land and sea warnings.
However, the storm continued to cause massive damage to ships, farms and coastal villages, and the search for survivors has been slowed by jurisdictional disputes.
The typhoon left at least 37 people dead in the Philippines last weekend. Another eight people died in China's Guangdong province and 15 in Fujian, including four children who died in a landslide.
In Vietnam, at least 28 fishermen have been confirmed dead and 150 others have been reported missing in what remains a very confused situation.
In central Vietnam, 27 fishermen who had been reported missing were found floating in life rafts, while another 94 Vietnamese fishermen were found on a Chinese island where they took refuge after their ships sank.
Eleven vessels with 221 fishermen aboard from the Vietnamese city of Danang sank during the typhoon, and at least some of the men were unaccounted for, said Nguyen Da Luong, a border control officer.
Rescue officials continued their search Friday for 22 other sailors who are still missing after their boats sank in Chinese waters, said Nguyen Sau of the Quang Ngai border control.
"If they have lifeboats, the possibility of them being alive and rescued is higher," Sau said, adding that the weather has improved but the sea was still rough.
Vietnam has asked China to help search for the missing, and to allow the Vietnamese fishermen to patrol Chinese waters to look for survivors.
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