At least seven people are feared dead in floods and a landslide triggered by Typhoon Haima that is dumping torrential rain across northern Taiwan, officials said yesterday.
Rock and earth loosened by five days of downpours swept away three houses and buried a family of four, including a 12-year-old boy, in mountainous Hsinchu County, the same region that had been devastated by Typhoon Aere last month.
"We've already found three bodies, including an elderly couple and their son. We are still looking for the fourth person, who is missing," a spokesman for the Hsinchu fire department said.
In the town of Ruifang in Taipei County, two people were washed away by floods and were feared dead, said an official at the government's disaster recovery center.
An elderly man was also found drowned in a flooded pedestrian underpass in Taoyuan County.
A senior engineer with the Taipei City Department of Rapid Transit Systems was hospitalized because of a critical myocardial infarction after joining emergency work overnight on an MRT construction site in Neihu, one of the areas hardest hit by flooding. The engineer remained in a coma as of yesterday noon.
The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) issued sea and land warnings for Typhoon Haima early yesterday morning as the typhoon was centered on Taiwan's northeastern corner.
Haima, the 20th typhoon reported in the Pacific area this year, developed from a southwest air current lurking near Taiwan over the past two days, marking a rare meteorological phenomenon.
The typhoon was centered about 70km east of Taipei at 11:30am, moving in a north-northwesterly direction at a speed of 14kph, CWB forecasters said.
Haima, with a radius of 100km, is expected to be centered around 380km north of Taipei by 11am today, the forecasters said.
Haima has brought torrential rains to the northern part of the island since Saturday, swelling rivers and flooding low-lying areas.
The weather bureau once again called for the public to be on high alert against mountain torrents, mudslides and storm surges in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taipei and Ilan counties as well as Taipei City and Keelung City.
The bureau also warned fishing boats operating in waters north and northeast of Taiwan to be on alert against strong winds and high waves.
In anticipation of continuing downpours, the Executive Yuan activated its Central Disaster Prevention and Relief Center Saturday morning to coordinate operations.
Serious flooding, resulting from the inability of pumping stations and drainage systems to cope with the amount of rain, hit Taipei City, with 98 locations being inundated with water. Meanwhile a majority of neighborhoods in Hsichih, Sanchung and Hsinchuang cities in Taipei County were also hit hard by flooding.
Flooding was also reported in the southern harbor city of Kaohsiung, especially in the Nantse district, which was submerged in knee-deep water by mid-morning Saturday.
With the typhoon's pace expected to slow down slightly, the CWB warned that the entire island could be seriously affected by torrential rains over the next two days.
Meanwhile, Premier Yu Shyi-kun has made phone calls to Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Acting Taipei County Magistrate Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) to get reports on the damage in their jurisdictions, and promised to provide disaster relief, including sending military personnel and water pumps to affected areas.
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