Taipei - Rescuers searched Monday for some 450 villagers whose homes in a southern Taiwan were buried by rockslides after Typhoon Morakot left at least 15 dead in the island's worst flooding in 50 years.

The National Fire Agency said they first found 43 survivors from Hsiaolin Village, and later spotted another 100 taking shelter in a slope near the village said to have 600 villagers.

"We have so far found 43 people and air-lifted 32 of them from Hsiaolin Village," said Huang Chi-min, director of National Fire Agency, earlier Monday.

Huang said the rescue unit dispatched a helicopter to search for survivors after reports that the mountain village in the southern county of Kaohsiung was buried by rockslide overnight.

Earlier on Monday, one of the survivors told the rescue unit he believed more than 600 other villagers were either trapped or buried by the rockslide, but according to the census authorities, more than 1,000 people had registered their household status in the village.

"I didn't see other villagers. There were 600 of them. I don't know where they are still alive or not," the survivor was seen in a local television footage telling the rescue unit.

Huang said the rescue unit would continue to search for the survivors. Rescuers later alerted the agency they found another 100 villagers and was taking care of them before they were airlifted to safer places.

In the central county of Nantou, police Monday retrieved the body of a man believed to be one of the eight victims from five cars which were washed away by flashflood at a caved-in section of a riverside road on Sunday.

The government said at least 15 people were killed, 55 missing and 32 injured during the worst flooding in half a century.

A major bridge in the southern county of Pingtung collapsed Saturday, resulting in two vehicles with three people plunging into the running river, police said.

A six-storey resort hotel in the eastern county of Taitung was uprooted Sunday by rushing waters and slammed into the river along with five adjacent restaurants and houses, police said. Tourists and hotel staff had evacuated just before the building collapsed.

By Monday, waist-high floodwaters were reported in some low-lying areas in southern and eastern Taiwan after Morakot dumped a record 2,500 millimetres of rains in the region.

The Council of Agriculture estimated at least 5.06 billion Taiwan dollars (150 million US dollars) in agricultural losses so far. Flood victims would be given long-term low-interest loans to help them rebuild farm facilities and housing, it said.(dpa)