Seven fishermen were missing yesterday as Taiwan braced for the arrival of Typhoon Utor, forcing airlines to cancel domestic flights and railway lines to suspend services.
The seven crew members of the Taiwan-registered fishing vessel Sheng Yu Hsin (
Authorities in Taiwan asked authorities in the US, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines to assist in the search, which was hampered by rough seas and bad weather, the officials said.
Utor, the fourth typhoon to hit Taiwan this year, was expected to make landfall on Taiwan's southeast coast late tonight, the Central Weather Bureau said.
At 7pm yesterday, Utor was located about 330km south of Taiwan's southernmost tip of Oluanpi, moving northwest toward Taiwan at a speed of 33kph, and packing maximum sustained winds of 140kph with gusts of up to 175kph.
The storm brought heavy rainfall and flooding to homes and farms in coastal areas in the southeast of the country, the bureau said.
The government has evacuated residents living in inundated areas, officials said.
The bureau also urged residents to be alert to possible flooding and landslides in mountainous areas.
According to the Council of Agriculture, over 5,000 mainland fishermen working on boats from Taiwan and China will weather the storm in the relative safety of the island's ports.
More than 400 of these boats had reportedly anchored in ports by midday yesterday responding to heavy sea warnings by the council which began broadcasting the announcement on Tuesday evening, according to officials.
Most airlines cancelled domestic flights, severing air links across the country beginning mid-afternoon yesterday and later cancelled all domestic flights by late-evening last night. Services are expected to remain frozen until around midday today when they should gradually come back on line.
Flights to offshore islands like Penghu, Green Island, Kinmen and Lanyu were also mostly cancelled, while Taiwan's biggest international carrier, China Airlines (華航), brought forward departure times for a number of international flights last night.
The Taiwan Railway Administration began closing services along the east coast at noon yesterday and continued to close other lines connecting Hualien and Taitung and Taipei and Kaohsiung throughout the afternoon.
Offices, schools and government services in Tainan were ordered closed yesterday afternoon, officials said.
The situation in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second-largest city, was normal, although officials also set up a disaster relief center there to monitor the southern Taiwan area. Kaohsiung's port -- one of the world's busiest -- also remained open.
A previous front, Tropical Storm Chebi, left 17 dead and 13 missing in Taiwan last week.
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