Tropical Storm Fengshen struck China’s southeastern coast yesterday, bringing new torrential downpours to a region reeling from heavy rains and deadly flooding earlier in the month.
The storm, which also packed high winds, made landfall in Guangdong Province early in the morning, closing schools and disrupting air traffic across the region and in Macau and Hong Kong, Xinhua news agency reported.
More than 13,000 ships returned to Guangzhou’s bustling port in advance of the storm, the agency said.
Heavy downpours in the nearby city of Zhongshan limited road visibility to just a few dozen meters, forcing some motorists to stop their vehicles, a reporter said.
The Hong Kong Airport Authority said 70 inbound or outbound flights servicing the territory were delayed or canceled due to the storm, Xinhua reported, adding that dozens of flights were similarly affected at other Chinese airports.
1,000 DEATHS
Fengshen, meaning the “God of Wind,” killed more than 1,000 people in the Philippines while rated as a typhoon and took a surprise turn toward southern China on Tuesday night.
Fengshen, since downgraded to a tropical storm, had been expected to swing into the South China Sea from the Philippines and track northward to Taiwan but instead veered northwest, Hong Kong’s observatory said.
Xinhua quoted Guangdong’s meteorological authority as saying the storm would move slowly north and gradually lose strength.
However, it was expected to continue to dump heavy rains on areas of eastern and southeastern China that have been pounded by deadly downpours since early this month.
The rains, the worst in more than a century for some regions, have killed at least 176 people and left 52 missing in flood-related incidents as of last week, Chinese state media reported.
200mm of RAIN
Fengshen’s landfall was preceded by heavy gales and the storm was expected to dump up to 200mm of rain on Shenzhen yesterday and today, Xinhua said.
The China Central Meteorological Station said heavy rains would sweep Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces for several days.
The storm triggered a morning suspension of Hong Kong Stock Exchange trading and paralyzed public transport in the southern Chinese territory.
Some tourists were stranded in Macau on Tuesday night after ferry services between Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen were halted.
FLOODS
The Chinese flooding earlier this month caused more than 1.6 million people to be evacuated in areas hardest hit by the rains, with large tracts of farmland submerged and economic losses to exceed US$2 billion, the Chinese government said.
Those floods had either swamped hundreds of roads in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces or left them cut off by landslides.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)