LIUKUEI, Taiwan (AFP) - The United States flew aircraft to Taiwan Sunday as China offered to send helicopters to help rescue more than 1,300 people still stranded a week after Typhoon Morakot struck the island.

As the massive operation to airlift people to safety from the devastated areas in southern Taiwan continued, President Ma Ying-jeou issued his second apology in as many days for the government's slow response.

"Sorry we were late," Ma told a community meeting in southern Pingtung county. "Still, we hope to get your life back to normal as soon as possible," he added.

The official death toll stands at 124 but Ma has warned that the number could rise to more than 500, with hundreds feared buried beneath the rubble in the village of Hsiaolin alone.

After days of mounting criticism, the president convened his first national security meeting Friday and replaced Taiwan's head of emergency operations.

Helicopters criss-crossed southern mountainous regions, airlifting survivors to safety as 41,000 troops fought raging rivers and crossed collapsed bridges to reach victims, many of whom have been without food for more than a week.

More than 1,370 people still needed to be airlifted from four devastated southern counties, Chiayi, Pingtung, Kaohsiung and Taitung, the government said in a statement.

A United States military C-130 transport aircraft landed in southern Tainan Sunday afternoon, arriving from an American airbase in Okinawa, Japan, the defence ministry said.

The US was also sending two heavy-lift military helicopters to Taiwan to help in relief efforts, said Transport Minister Mao Chih-kuo, who is also in charge of the emergency response.

The US flights marked the first US military deployment in Taiwan since 1979, when US troops based on the island left after Washington shifted its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

And in a sign of warming relations with China, Beijing offered to provide helicopters, the Taipei-based United Daily News quoted Fan Liqing, spokeswoman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, as saying.

The offer would include Russian-made helicopters, currently the world's biggest, which Chinese rescuers used during last year's earthquake in China, the report said.

About 60 countries, the European Union and 19 international and non-governmental organisations have contributed money to relief efforts, the foreign ministry said.

The government said it also received 1.14 million US dollars worth of medical supplies from Singapore and water purifiers and high-speed water-transport equipment from Israel.