After a punishing weekend of pummeling rain, landslides, flooding, and collapsing houses, Taiwan and The Philippines are licking their wounds and counting the dead resulting from being hit by Typhoon Morakot.
The collapsed six-story Taiwan hotel in the picture above, whose 300 guests were all successfully evacuated, ended up collapsing into the floor waters, and it's no wonder with some southern cities getting dumped on by over 80 inches of rain. Before Morakot—which means "Emerald" in Thai— made landfall on Taiwan, it first killed 21 people in The Philippines. Among the dead were two Belgian tourists and a French tourist. ]]>