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Sepat injures twenty four, forces evacuations

People struggle to hold on to their umbrellas on a Taipei street as Typhoon Sepat hit Taiwan yesterday, bringing strong winds and heavy rain. PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES

Typhoon Sepat lashed the country with strong winds and torrential rain yesterday, cutting power to nearly 95,000 homes, injuring twenty four people and forcing more than 1,000 others to evacuate.

Four people suffered minor injuries in Taipei after being blown off their motorcycles while one man was wounded by falling rocks in Kaohsiung, the National Fire Agency said.

Another 1,785 people had to evacuate their homes in mountain villages that were threatened by mudslides, the Central Disaster Control Center said.

Officials at the center added that one person had died and another was injured while driving in bad weather on Friday, but the case was considered a road accident and not a storm-related casualty.

Several vehicles were crushed by a falling billboard in Taipei, scaffolding collapsed at a building on the outskirts of the city and, in mountainous areas such as Taichung County's Lishan (梨山), workers battled to clear uprooted trees and rocks blocking roads.

Nearly 95,000 homes suffered from power outages, the center said.

"Initially, there were more than 240,000 homes without electricity cuts, but the repairs are already done for over 140,000 households," a center official said.

"Some of the unrepaired ones are located in the hardest hit areas, including Hualien, Taitung and Nantou counties," he said.

The eye of the typhoon, which passed over the estuary of the Hsiukuluan River (秀姑巒溪) in Hualien County at 5:40am yesterday, left Taiwan proper at the mouth of the Choshui River (濁水溪) in western Taiwan at 11am, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday.

Strong winds and heavy rain are forecast for today as Sepat moves away, it said.

However, the bureau said that the nation will be out of the coverage of storm by today.

By 8pm yesterday, the center of Sepat was 80km north of Penghu. It was moving northwest at 13kph.

Sepat's radius reached 250km. The maximum wind speed near the center was measured at 126kph.

Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣), a section chief at the CWB's weather forecast center, said Sepat had changed from a strong typhoon into a tropical storm after it made landfall.

He warned, however, that Taiwan proper as well as Green Island (綠島), Lanyu (蘭嶼), Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (馬祖) should still be prepared for strong winds and heavy rain.

From midnight through 2pm yesterday, accumulated rainfall had reached 727mm in Hualien County, 636mm in Ilan County, 363mm in Taipei County, 346mm in Taoyuan County, 331mm in Taichung County, 322mm in Nantou County, 307mm in Hsinchu County, 294mm in Kaohsiung County, 266mm in Taitung County and 262mm in Chiayi County, CWB data showed.

All Taiwan Railway Administration express trains were canceled yesterday. Some commuter trains continued to operate on certain sections of the network.

The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp canceled all trains leaving before 6pm yesterday.

It resumed service at 6pm yesterday and announced that all of its trains will run today.

Due to the inclement weather, Uni Air announced that flights leaving before 12pm today, including return flights from Kinmen and Penghu and flights between Taipei and Taitung, would be canceled. Those flights will resume after noon today.

However, all Taipei-Hengchun (恆春) and Taichung-Matsu flights will be canceled today.

Far Eastern Air Transport also said yesterday that flights leaving for the nation's surrounding islands before 12pm today would be canceled.

Passengers are advised to check with airlines for the latest information.

Ferries between Kinmen and the China's Xiamen and Chuanzhou were also suspended.

As of 5:30pm yesterday, the Directorate General of Highways reported that 13 provincial highways had been partially damaged and have yet to resume normal operations.

The Council of Agriculture estimated that Sepat had caused at least NT$830 million (US$25.1 million) in damage.

Strong wind and torrential rain had damaged about 2,500 hectares devoted to fruit and vegetables in Hualien County, with 1,340 hectares of cropland completely destroyed, bureau Director Tu Li-hua (杜麗華) said after inspecting typhoon affected areas earlier in the day yesterday.

Tu said pomelo growers sustained the heaviest losses, with around 1,040 hectares of pomelo orchards damaged.

Watermelons, bananas and leafy vegetables were also seriously damaged. The losses have reached the level entitling farmers to financial aid from the government, he said.

In Taitung County, the production of pomelos was also slashed by nearly 50 percent due to Sepat's devastation, the Taitung County Bureau of Agriculture said.

Agriculture and Food Agency (AFA) officials said major vegetable production areas in Taichung, Changhua, Nantou, Yunlin and Chiayi counties were relatively undamaged, leaving vegetable supplies at normal levels yesterday.

Agency officials urged consumers to refrain from panic buying.

"As of this morning, we have not seen extensive damage to crops and wholesale prices for fruit and vegetables are correspondingly stable," said Su Mao-shiang (蘇茂祥), head of the AFA.

"Of course, we cannot predict what damage the tail end of the typhoon might do to crops," Su said.

An AFA release said there are more than 4,500 tonnes of vegetables stored in temperature-controlled warehouses that can be gradually released into the market to absorb consumer demands.

Additional reporting by Angelica Oung
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