Typhoon Haikui, which swept through Taiwan, knocked down hundreds of trees and damaged roads before downgrading Monday morning to a severe storm and moving towards southern China.
At first, it seemed to move away from Taiwan before making landfall again on Monday morning near Kaohsiung, in the Southwest. It was then downgraded to a severe tropical storm as it headed for the Taiwan Strait.
No fatalities were reported but more than 100 people were injured, authorities said. These are mainly minor injuries caused by falling trees and car accidents.
Damage was seen in Taitung, a mountainous and relatively sparsely populated county in the east of the island, which suffered the brunt of the typhoon on Sunday.
“I’ve lived here for a long time and I’ve never experienced such gusts of wind,” said Chen Hai-feng, 55, village chief of Donghe, who was on the job early Monday to help remove trees lying on a road.
“It swept right through us,” said Mr. Chen who, contrary to general opinion, found this storm more powerful than previous ones.
Employees were busy Monday moving with diggers the branches of felled trees and broken electrical cables that littered a rain-soaked road.
Further north, in the coastal township of Changbin, workers hauled huge blocks to a coastal road that partly collapsed under the force of the waves.
Heavy orange barriers have been installed to prevent cars from skidding on slippery roads.
Kirin Chen helped a team clear branches from a sidewalk leading to a school in Taitung County.
“A lot of trees have fallen,” she says, “we are trying to remove them so the children can get to school safely tomorrow.”
Market vendors in Keelung, a northern port city surrounded by mountains, braved the rain to sell their fruit.
Haikui is the first typhoon to make landfall in four years. By the time it hit on Sunday afternoon, nearly 8,000 people had been evacuated across the island, particularly in mountainous areas prone to landslides. Hundreds of flights have been canceled and businesses and businesses have closed.
More than 260,000 homes were temporarily without power on Sunday. Monday afternoon, 22,000 remained without power.
Schools and businesses were still closed in 14 cities due to torrential rains.
According to a forecaster from Taiwan’s Central Meteorological Bureau, Haikui appeared to be moving away from the island and heading offshore but made landfall a second time in Kaohsiung around 4 a.m. (2000 GMT Sunday).
Overnight, “the core of the typhoon was almost circling” the major port city of Kaohsiung as it moved along the coastline, “and it gradually weakened,” she said.
At midday, the storm was located southwest of Penghu Island, off Taiwan.
In Kaohsiung County, the local government reported hundreds of toppled trees and flooding in dozens of localities.
09/04/2023 11:51:43 – Taitung (Taiwan) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
