Most domestic air services, Keelung Port and some rail lines in northern Taiwan ground to a halt yesterday as strong winds and rain brought by Typhoon Sinlaku battered the nation.
Domestic flights out of Taipei's Sungshan Airport were cancelled yesterday and most airlines were electing to keep flights in and out of that airport grounded today as well.
Some airlines will operate flights between southern cities such as Kaohsiung, Tainan, Chiayi, Taichung and the west coast islands of Penghu and Kinmen as usual.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
However flights to east coast islands of Green Island and Orchid Island will be grounded at least until midday today when airlines will take stock of weather conditions.
The majority of international flights out of Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taoyuan were either operating on to schedule yesterday or were delayed until today subject to weather conditions.
The wind was blowing across wet CKS runways at 10kph, gusting to 20kph at around 7pm, according to airport officials.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Airport weather forecasters expected winds to build to between 55kph to 74kph overnight. The maximum permissable wind speeds at takeoff and landing for one of the largest aircraft -- the Boeing 747-400 -- are around 45kph to 64kph.
Some noticeable cancellations were a number of flights yesterday and today to Tokyo and Subic Bay in the Philippines. Rail connections between Taipei and Keelung and Taipei and Ilan were also halted yesterday evening at 7pm.
Mountain rail services between Taipei and Taichung and the coastal line between Taipei and Changhwa are cancelled today, as are services between Taipei and Hualien. All rail services south of Taichung on the west coast and Hualien on the east are operating normally.
Officials last night reported that most major roads around the island were open.
However in Taipei, hundreds of cars could be seen parked on highway overpasses as their owners moved them from basement car parks and large parking areas along the Tamshui and Keelung rivers, which were expected to swell with the heavy rains.
The Keelung Harbor Bureau said it halted shipping and cargo loadings at Taiwan's second largest port. Keelung Harbor halted the loading of crude oil and fuel product cargoes early this morning when the eye of the typhoon reached north of the island, said a Keelung Harbor Bureau official who declined to be named. The harbor will remain shut until the typhoon weakens or passes, he said
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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