Taiwan at a standstill as Saola kills 6, leaves trail of destruction
Source: AFP |
August 3, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TYPHOON Saola pounded Taiwan with fierce winds and torrential rain that left at least six people dead and forced almost the entire island to shut down yesterday.
Nearly 200 international and domestic flights were canceled and Taiwan authorities suspended trading on financial markets.
Two passenger boarding bridges collapsed at Taoyuan International Airport, which serves Taipei and northern Taiwan, slightly damaging a China Airlines aircraft, airport officials said.
The Taiwan-based carrier was forced to scrap a flight bound for Japan, affecting more than 170 passengers.
The slow-moving typhoon, which killed at least 23 people in the Philippines, lost momentum and weakened into a tropical storm after it made a second landfall in the northeast around 2pm.
"The public must not relax their vigilance even though Saola has weakened into a storm over the past three hours. More torrential rains are expected in many parts of the island today," an official from the island's weather bureau warned.
More than a meter of rainfall has fallen in parts of the island since Tuesday, according to the bureau.
Saola made first landfall near the eastern coastal city of Hualien at 3:20am and moved back out to sea four hours later, it said. Saola - the first typhoon to hit the island this year - triggered heavy rains especially in the north and east and touched off widespread mudslides, forcing the authorities to evacuate more than 1,500 people islandwide.
Television images from a police helicopter showed mudslides engulfing roads and farmland and threatening numerous households.
Many residents across the island woke to see their neighborhoods covered in ankle-deep water, with classes and work suspended everywhere except for Taidong county in the southeast.
The typhoon, packing winds of up to 108 kilometers an hour, left toppled trees blocking streets and hampering traffic in several places in the capital Taipei.
Rail traffic was interrupted while the high-speed railway linking Taipei to Kaohsiung cut its services to 97 trains from the scheduled 123.
More than 50,000 households were left without power and nearly 7,000 households without water, the Emergency Operation Centre said.
The weather bureau said that the storm would continue to have an impact on the island into the weekend, and that winds following in its wake could cause heavy rainfall in southern parts of Taiwan next week.
Nearly 200 international and domestic flights were canceled and Taiwan authorities suspended trading on financial markets.
Two passenger boarding bridges collapsed at Taoyuan International Airport, which serves Taipei and northern Taiwan, slightly damaging a China Airlines aircraft, airport officials said.
The Taiwan-based carrier was forced to scrap a flight bound for Japan, affecting more than 170 passengers.
The slow-moving typhoon, which killed at least 23 people in the Philippines, lost momentum and weakened into a tropical storm after it made a second landfall in the northeast around 2pm.
"The public must not relax their vigilance even though Saola has weakened into a storm over the past three hours. More torrential rains are expected in many parts of the island today," an official from the island's weather bureau warned.
More than a meter of rainfall has fallen in parts of the island since Tuesday, according to the bureau.
Saola made first landfall near the eastern coastal city of Hualien at 3:20am and moved back out to sea four hours later, it said. Saola - the first typhoon to hit the island this year - triggered heavy rains especially in the north and east and touched off widespread mudslides, forcing the authorities to evacuate more than 1,500 people islandwide.
Television images from a police helicopter showed mudslides engulfing roads and farmland and threatening numerous households.
Many residents across the island woke to see their neighborhoods covered in ankle-deep water, with classes and work suspended everywhere except for Taidong county in the southeast.
The typhoon, packing winds of up to 108 kilometers an hour, left toppled trees blocking streets and hampering traffic in several places in the capital Taipei.
Rail traffic was interrupted while the high-speed railway linking Taipei to Kaohsiung cut its services to 97 trains from the scheduled 123.
More than 50,000 households were left without power and nearly 7,000 households without water, the Emergency Operation Centre said.
The weather bureau said that the storm would continue to have an impact on the island into the weekend, and that winds following in its wake could cause heavy rainfall in southern parts of Taiwan next week.
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