As strong winds and heavy rain brought by Typhoon Aere are expected to affect Taiwan for an extended, Taipei City and County, Keelung, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City as well as Hsinchu, Taichung, Miaoli, Nantou and Ilan counties yesterday announced that schools and offices in the area will remain closed today.
After one day of closures yesterday, the stock and futures markets will also remain closed today.
Typhoon Aere yesterday triggered flooding and landslides throughout central and northern Taiwan. Bad weather will continue through tomorrow and natural disaster prevention measures will be necessary for people in mountainous and low-lying areas, according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).
With a 200km storm radius, the typhoon began to have a severe effect on the country yesterday. Nationwide, power to more than 22,800 homes in northern Taiwan was cut due to the storm. According to the Taiwan Power Company, landsides in remote mountain areas prevented technicians from fixing downed lines. As of press time, only half of the affected households had regained electricity.
At 5pm yesterday, Typhoon Aere was packing maximum gusts of 165kph and was centered 200km east-southeast of Taipei, moving west-northwest at 11kph, meteorologists said. It was predicted that Aere would be centered 90km northwest of Taipei as of 2pm today.
Forecasters said yesterday that Aere had begun moving slower than expected and would soak Taiwan with rain for about two days.
Due to the slowness and slightly altered route of Aere, the bureau yesterday revised its accumulated rainfall predictions to higher levels. As of press time, 574mm rainfall had fallen in Miaoli County. Meanwhile, in Kaohsiung and Hsinchu counties, rainfall exceeding 400mm was measured. Forecasters said yesterday that 1,000mm of rainfall might be measured in Chiayi County, Miaoli County and northern Taiwan.
"Such heavy rain will be devastating. People have to be on the alert for mudflows, landslides and flooding," said Fred Tsai (
Tsai said that low-lying coastal areas, including parts of the Taipei basin, might be inundated by rising tides.
The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday issued evacuation advisories for 13 townships vulnerable to mudflows and landslides. The threatened townships are in Taichung, Miaoli, Nantou and Yunlin counties.
Officials said that the continuous rainfall might trigger landslides and mudflows in the more mountainous areas of Miaoli and Chiayi.
The council's forestry bureau yesterday suspended the service of tourist trains in Alishan, Chiayi County, because 50m of the roadbed had subsided.
Several bridges across Chenyulan River in Nantou were closed.
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