The day after the storm, after Typhoon Megi blew merry hell on Tuesday night, all was quiet again in Neihu’s Dahu Park.
On the surface, it is a scene of tranquility. A pair of park benches placed side by side beside a stone path leading through the park and up the stairs leading across the hump-backed bridge that straddles the lake. The surface of the water in the distance is now calm: the previous night it would have been whipped into a frenzy by the gale-force winds racing through the park. The grass lining the path on either side is a fresh green, washed and scrubbed by the winds and rain of the day before.
But obstructing the path there is a curtain of bare branches, stripped of their leaves, the tree trunk that holds them snapped a third of the way up. The top two thirds is the hypotenuse of the triangle it now forms with the standing tree and the ground.
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
照片:台北時報記者古德謙攝
You can almost hear the creak and the whine of the broken wood as the top of the tree plunged to the ground.
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
週二的那個颱風夜,梅姬颱風大肆的興風作浪。而就在風雨過後的隔天,內湖的大湖公園裡一切又恢復了寂靜。
表面上,風平浪靜。一對椅子並排著,坐落在小徑旁邊。小徑穿越公園,蜿蜒而上,經過階梯,直達橫跨大湖的拱橋。遠遠望去,湖面是靜謐的。然而可以想見的是,前一晚強風路過,在公園裡肆意咆哮時,為這一片湖掀起了多少的狂亂。小徑兩旁的草地,接受前一天狂風的洗禮,如今青翠碧綠,宛如新生。
但,今天橫跨在小徑上的,是一幕宛如窗簾的枯枝,樹枝上的葉子都已剝離。那中流砥柱的樹幹從三分之一的地方裂開,倒下的靠近頂端的那三分之二,如今與還挺立的三分之一還有地面形成了一個三角,三角的斜邊就是那為強颱折腰的三分之二。
你幾乎可以聽見,樹幹斷裂、一頭栽到地面時,心碎的慘叫聲。
(台北時報編譯詹豐造譯)
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