Two killed as Nakri ravages nation

Wind and rain triggered by Tropical Storm Nakri had claimed the lives of two people and left at least 10 people injured by yesterday evening.

The body of Wu Kuan-ying (吳冠英), 53, was found by a helicopter yesterday afternoon after he drowned off the coast of Taitung County yesterday morning, an official at National Fire Administration (NFA) told the Taipei Times.

Huang Chun-yu (黃崇祐), a contract worker with the Ret-Ser Engineering Corporation (榮民工程股份有限公司) under the Cabinet-level Veterans Affairs Commission, drowned off Yunlin County while working on a gravel retrieval vessel, the official added.

A Chinese fisherman, Zhang Qinjin (張青靚), was still missing yesterday after a Taiwanese search-and-rescue team plucked 133 fishermen from the bow of their burning boat on Tuesday. Nine of them were injured.

Among the fishermen rescued from the Yuanshen No. 2 (元勝二號), 127 were from China and five were from Vietnam. The shipmaster was from Taiwan.

In the central mountains of Taiwan, the NFA official said, authorities had lost contact with several hikers.

"As of 6pm, we have yet to make contact with 16 hikers in mountain areas in Ilan County and Nantou County," the official said.

The Typhoon Disaster Command Center said that more than 100 hikers in the mountains had been found unharmed.

Apart from the nine Chinese fishermen, another two people were injured as strong winds and heavy rain swept over the nation.

On Tuesday evening, 31-year-old Liao Weng-ching (廖文金) was injured when he fell from a building under construction in Changhua County in strong winds, the center said.

A 6-year-old girl was injured yesterday when a large boulder fell on a tour bus taking school children to Taroko Gorge, Hualien County.

Nakri, which made landfall on Taiwan at around 5am yesterday, forced several domestic airports to close. Landslides sparked by the heavy rain interrupted traffic in several mountainous areas around the country.

As of 7pm, the tropical storm's center was about 130km northeast of Ilan. It was moving east at a speed of 13kph, the Central Weather Bureau said.

The tropical storm has already dumped 34cm of rain on Taipei County and 23cm on Ilan County, the bureau said.

Forecasters warned that heavy rain was expected to continue for at least two more days and that landslides were possible.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) visited the command center yesterday afternoon and warned residents to be vigilant.

"The Central Weather Bureau forecasts that the storm will bring still more rain to Taiwan, so we should not lower our guard and should remain on alert," Chen said.