‘Gaemi’ pounds Taiwan
TAIPEI/BEIJING—Typhoon “Gaemi” swept through northern Taiwan on Thursday, killing three people, triggering flooding and sinking a freighter before barreling west across the Taiwan Strait toward China where it is expected to dump more torrential rain.
Gaemi made landfall around midnight (1600 GMT Wednesday) on the northeastern coast of Taiwan in Yilan county. It is the strongest typhoon to hit the island in eight years and was packing gusts of up to 227 kilometers per hour before weakening, according to the Central Weather Administration.
As of 12:15 p.m. (0415 GMT), Gaemi was in the Taiwan Strait and heading toward Fuzhou in China’s Fujian province.
Gaemi would be the biggest typhoon to hit China’s eastern seaboard this year, with its spiraling cloud bands spanning most of the Western Pacific Ocean and fueling severe weather from the Philippines to Japan’s Okinawa islands.
In Taiwan, the storm cut power to around half a million households, though most are now back online, utility Taipower said.
Some parts of southern Taiwan are expected to have recorded accumulated rainfall of 2,200 millimeter since Tuesday.
‘Strongest in years’
The typhoon is expected to bring more rain across Taiwan in its wake, with offices and schools as well as the financial markets closed for a second day on Thursday.
Trains will be stopped until 3 p.m., with all domestic flights and 195 international flights canceled for the day. The high-speed train linking north and south Taiwan will reopen at 2 p.m. (0600 GMT).
Three people have died and 380 injured due to the typhoon, the government said. Taiwanese television stations showed pictures of flooded streets in cities and counties across the island.
Li Li-chuan, 55, saw the roof of her restaurant blow off in the northeastern Taiwanese city of Suao.
“I was frightened,” she told Reuters. “It was the strongest in years. I was worried that the roof would hit other people.”
Taiwan’s fire department said a Tanzania-flagged freighter with nine Myanmar nationals on board had sunk off the coast of the southern port city of Kaohsiung and there had been no response from the crew.
Stormy weather has prevented rescuers from reaching the sailors, Hsiao Huan-chang, head of Taiwan’s National Fire Agency, told a briefing.
“They fell into the sea and were floating there,” Hsiao said, adding that rescuers contacted a nearby Taiwanese cargo ship to assist them.
Hsiao did not specify when the Tanzania-flagged ship sank, but said the rescue vessel arrived in the area at 8:35 a.m. (0035 GMT).
“(When the Taiwanese ship arrived) the visibility at the scene was very low and the winds were too strong,” he said.
“When the weather permits, we will immediately dispatch ships or helicopters to rescue but at the moment it is not possible.”
China next
Chinese weather forecasters said Gaemi will pass through Fujian province later on Thursday and head inland, gradually moving northward with less intensity. But weather forecasters are expecting heavy rain in many areas as it tracks north.
Government officials have already prepared for heavy rain and flooding, raising advisories and warnings in the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.
In Fujian, government officials have relocated about 150,000 people, mainly from coastal fishing communities, state media reported. As gale force winds picked up, officials in Zhoushan in Zhejiang suspended passenger waterway routes for up to three days.
Most flights were canceled at airports in Fuzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian, and Wenzhou in Zhejiang, according to the VariFlight app.
Guangzhou rail officials suspended some trains that pass through typhoon-affected areas, according to CCTV.
