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Forecasters expect drought to defy storm

A woman with a dog in her arms watches a plane landing at Taipei's Sungshan Airport yesterday afternoon. Thick clouds in irregular shapes appeared as Tropical Storm Nangka was sweeping across southern and eastern Taiwan yesterday. PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

Tropical Storm Nangka, which will leave Taiwan today, was expected to do little to ease the threat of drought in northern Taiwan, the Water Resources Agency (WRA) said yesterday.

Nangka, just off southern and eastern counties yesterday, was expected to pass Taiwan today as it moves northeast, Central Weather Bureau officials said.

"The impending drought in the north, however, remains a threat because little rainfall will be brought by Nangka," WRA Deputy Director Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢) said.

In order to limit consumption, water pressure in northern counties, including Hsinchu, Taoyuan and Taipei, is still being reduced at night.

Chen said heavier water consumption due to the spread of SARS over the past two months has increased demands on the Shihmen Dam in Taoyuan County and the Feitsui Reservoir in Taipei County.

Chen said that the water supply for the north could be sustained until the end of the month because the storage level is 100 million cubic meters more than at the same time last year.

Facing the worst drought in the past two decades, Taipei City adopted water restrictions on May 13 last year.

Chen said a meeting by the Ministry of Economic Affairs about handling the impending water shortage will be held on June 17 to review rainfall this month and determine whether stricter conservation measures are needed.

According to the weather bureau, expected relief may come on Thursday with new precipitation.

According to bureau, rainfall last month was disappointing. Forecasters said yesterday that rainfall last month in Taipei was 88.8mm, far less than the normal level of 188mm to 303mm.

In central Taiwan, officials said, last month's rainfall was 100.8mm, less than the normal level of 162mm to 280mm.

In southern Taiwan, rainfall last month was only 13.5mm, which is far less than normal levels ranging from 98mm to 235mm.

WRA officials said yesterday that Nangka might make it possible to channel more water from the Kao-ping River, which divides Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, to the Nanhua Reservoir in Tainan County.

The officials said water levels at the Tsengwen and Wushantou reservoirs in Tainan County are falling due to heavy demand from the agricultural sector for irrigation.

The water accumulations at the two reservoirs yesterday were at their second-lowest levels in the past three decades.

The level at the Tsengwen, the largest reservoir in the country, was 168.84m yesterday, lower than the dead storage level -- the level below which water must be pumped out -- of 171m.

Due to the approach of Nangka, the Council of Agriculture yesterday urged residents in mountainous areas to take precautions in the event of mudslides.

"Although Nangka is just a tropical storm, residents in mountainous areas on the Hengchun Peninsula should check to see whether revetment and escape canals nearby can resist torrential rain," said Wu Hui-lung (吳輝龍), chief of the council's Soil and Water Conservation Bureau.
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