Millions of households in the country's southern provinces awoke to scenes of devastation Saturday after a night of heavy gales as Typhoon Maemi carved a destructive path through the country, killing at least 48 people.

But with 215 kilometer (135 mile) per hour winds continuing to batter the eastern and southeastern provinces of Gangweon and Gyeongsang and the southern island of Jeju, there was little respite for thousands forced to flee their homes.

Television footage showed a row of seaside restaurants in the coastal city of Busan destroyed by typhoon-powered waves that breached the sea wall, wrecking cars, crumpling containers and scattering debris.

"There is nothing left here. My refrigerator is gone, TV set gone and even the heating boiler is missing," said Park Sun-Ja, the owner of one seaside fish restaurant.

Towering industrial cranes weighing almost 1,000 tonnes buckled easily under the force of the wind in Busan's container terminal, tumbling to the ground and injuring at least five firefighters.

"It will take at least one year to restore these cranes," a port official said.

A 50-year-old man died after he was blown off the terrace of his Busan house and two others were electrocuted in separate incidents in Busan when power lines were snapped by gusting winds.

In Jeju, a sailor died after his leg was severed by a rope as he was trying to moor his barge.

And in the southeastern port of Ulsan, a giant semi-constructed oil rig was torn from its moorings and sent crashing into a huge partly-constructed petrochemical tanker, badly damaging both vessels.

In Yeosu in the southwestern province of South Jolla, rescuers were seen digging through mud to reach three victims of a family who were later found dead after their house was crushed by a landslide.

More than 1.3 million households were plunged into darkness at the height of the storm, with downed electricity cables forcing five nuclear power plants in the southeastern Kori and Wolseong counties to shut down.

One train was also derailed, with road and rail communications badly affected by the storm. Rivers were also transformed into swollen torrents of muddy water, which breached banks and engulfed bridges.

With many remote areas still cut off late Saturday, the death toll was expected to rise as more information filtered through.

But weather officials were already branding typhoon Maemi, which means cicada in Korean, as one of the formidable ever to strike the country.

"It was the most powerful typhoon in terms of wind speed since we began compiling weather records in 1904," said Yoon Seok-hwan, an official at the Korea Metrological Administration.

TERRA.WIRE