A tropical depression yesterday pummeled southern Taiwan, killing two people and severely flooding several places in Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County.
Two people were killed and one was severely injured when high winds felled scaffolding in Kaohsiung, the city’s Department of Building Affairs said.
The tropical depression made landfall in Pingtung County yesterday morning, bringing torrential rainfall to the area, the Central Weather Bureau said.
Photo: EPA-EFE / KAOHSIUNG HARBOR
Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Changhua, Yunlin, Nantou, Chiayi and Pingtung counties canceled school and work last night starting at 6pm.
Yunlin County, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Chiayi City and Chiayi County have announced that schools and offices will be closed today.
The system is to travel north along the west side of the Central Mountain Range toward the Taiwan Strait, the bureau forecast.
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times
Chances of extremely heavy to torrential rainfall remain high today in areas south of Taichung, it said.
People in northern Taiwan could see heavier rainfall today, the bureau said, adding that people should prepare for potential damage caused by lightning and floods.
In addition to causing severe flooding in downtown Tainan and Kaohsiung, the tropical depression disrupted shipping services.
Photo: Yeh Yung-chien, Taipei Times
Seven cargo ships ran aground off the coast of Kaohsiung, with 73 crew members on board waiting for rescue, the Port and Marine Bureau said.
Shipping services to Siaoliouciou (小琉球), Green Island (綠島) and Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) were also canceled.
Train tracks in Kaohsiung’s Fongshan District (鳳山) were inundated with water, forcing the Taiwan Railways Administration to suspend operations.
Although the rain is expected to ease by tomorrow, the bureau said that both flat and mountainous areas in central and southern Taiwan could see accumulations of up to 800mm between yesterday and tomorrow.
Rainfall in mountainous areas in the southeast could top 400mm, whereas mountains in northern Taiwan could see 300mm of rain, the bureau said.
As of 7:40pm yesterday, eight of the top 10 weather stations with the most rainfall were in Kaohsiung, including the ones in Liouguei (六龜), Meinong (美濃), Chishan (旗山) and Taoyuan (桃源) districts.
From tomorrow until Wednesday next week, the nation is to remain under the influence of a monsoon trough, the bureau said, adding that southwest winds would bring thundershowers to central and southern Taiwan.
Cloudy skies with isolated thundershowers are forecast for the rest of the nation, it said, adding that chances of heavy to extremely heavy rainfall would remain high.
Heavy precipitation could also occur during afternoon thundershowers, with the high temperature varying between 31°C and 34°C, the bureau said.
Travelers to Japan and South Korea are advised to monitor the development of typhoons Cimaron and Soulik, which are to continue to affect the two nations today, it said.
Additional reporting by CNA
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS