TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese rescuers searching mountainsides hit by massive mudslides unleashed by Typhoon Megi found mangled parts of a vehicle thought to be a bus that was carrying 19 missing Chinese tourists, the transport minister said Saturday.

Landslides caused by the typhoon killed nine people and buried a Buddhist temple in hardest-hit Ilan county in the northeast, where a record 45 inches of rain fell over 48 hours.

Three other people drowned in their flooded homes, the Central Emergency Operations Center said. A total of 23 people were missing.

Taiwanese Transport Minister Mao Chih-kuo said rescuers found the vehicle parts in a deep valley next to a coastal highway.

"The bus was covered all over by thick mud," Mao said.

Next to the vehicle was the wreckage of another bus crushed by a huge boulder, but Chinese tourists on that bus were able to escape.

Megi, which earlier killed 28 people in the Philippines, pounded southern China's Fujian province on Saturday after leaving Taiwan but was downgraded to a strong tropical storm with winds of up to 67 mph.