The most powerful typhoon to hit southern China in more than half a century left at least 16 dead as a sudden deluge swamped the gambling hub of Macau, submerging streets and stranding residents.
Officials yesterday said that eight people were killed in the former Portuguese colony, including two men found overnight in a submerged parking garage, while 153 were injured amid extensive flooding, power outages and the smashing of doors and windows by high winds and driving rain.
“It’s a calamity, the losses are high and a lot of buildings need repair,” Macanese lawmaker Jose Pereira Coutinho said, adding that he had heard from many people who still had no water or electricity a day after Typhoon Hato tore across the 30km2 territory.
Photo: Reuters
He said the flooding was at its worst in the older parts downtown, where narrow lanes date back from Macau’s time as a Portuguese colony for more than four centuries.
Macanese Chief Executive Fernando Chui (崔世安) ordered measures to “further the relief efforts,” the Government Information Bureau said in a statement yesterday.
Its reliance on the mainland for electricity compounded problems. Power outages in neighboring Guangdong Province, which supplies nearly 90 percent of Macau’s electricity, cascaded into outages across the territory, forcing casino operators, a hospital and mobile phone company CTM to switch to backup generators.
Power utility CEM yesterday said that it was restoring service, but about 40,000 customers remained in the dark because of damaged power supply facilities.
Xinhua news agency said eight more people were killed in Guangdong and one person remained missing.
Typhoon Hato on Wednesday roared into the area with winds of up to 160kph. It weakened into a tropical storm yesterday as it moved farther west inland.
Almost 27,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters, while extensive damage to farmland due to the heavy rain and high tides was also reported, Xinhua said.
Almost 2 million households lost power temporarily, while fishing boats were called back to port and train services and flights suspended, it added.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique