Officials urged people to leave mountainous areas immediately yesterday as heavy rain threatened to trigger more landslides in the north of the country.
The Central Weather Bureau yesterday issued a torrential rain warning for central and southern Taiwan that will be in force until today. The bureau also urged residents of mountainous areas in Hsinchu and Miaoli counties to be on high alert for new mudslides triggered by heavy rain.
Rescue crews were also losing hope yesterday of finding survivors from the mudslide that destroyed more than 20 homes in remote villages in Hsinchu County as Typhoon Aere thrashed the island on Tuesday and Wednesday. The storm killed at least 31 people and several are still missing, disaster officials said.
Torrential rains stopped search efforts late on Friday as rescue crews and residents were ordered to leave mountainous areas where officials said more unstable soil and rocks could come crashing down. The work continued yesterday morning, but rain halted the work again in the afternoon.
Television reports showed scores of people boarding military helicopters and leaving Atayal Aboriginal villages in Hsinchu County. Some residents refused to leave because they wanted to search for lost relatives or begin rebuilding their homes.
Hsinchu County Commissioner Cheng Yung-chin (
"This area is regarded as the most dangerous. Those who aren't rescue workers must evacuate immediately," Chen said.
Meanwhile, rescue teams airlifted more relief supplies to neighboring Chienshih township, where hundreds of tourists and residents were still stranded yesterday because of several blocked roads.
A liaison official helping residents maintain contact with the outside world said people in Chienshih township had almost been forgotten while the news media and government focused their attention on Wufeng township.
Lin said food was running out in Chienshih because no relief supplies had been airlifted there since Wednesday.
The typhoon displaced 4,904 people nationwide, the central government's disaster center said. It also blacked out 377,594 homes, but 98 percent of the residences had power restored by yesterday, the center said.
But about half of the 445,610 homes that lost access to clean water were still waiting for their water service to be repaired, the center said.
Ten military helicopters have delivered more than 80 tonnes of supplies to people who were trapped in villages where roads were destroyed, the center said.
The bureau yesterday warned that it was watching a tropical storm in the Pacific for signs that it could also hit the nation.
Tropical storm Songda was developing near Guam, about 4,800km east of Taiwan, the bureau said. Songda was moving west toward Taiwan and the Philippines at 20kph, it said.
"The storm is still far away and there are many factors that could change. We'll just have to keep watching it in the next few days. It's too early to say if it'll threaten Taiwan," a bureau spokesperson said.
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