Heavy rainfall over the last three days has caused four deaths and left four people missing.
Police said a 37-member group which planned to hike Chilai south peak and Nanhuashan in Nantou County encountered mudslides as they started up the trail Thursday morning. Five members in the rear of the group were able to run to safety, police said, but two men, surnamed Ma and Lin, were buried under a fall of stones and sand and are presumed dead.
Yang Chia-chia (
PHOTO: CHANG HSUN-TENG, TAIPEI TIMES
Five members of the group, including two foreigners, were trapped between landslides until being rescued by police helicopters yesterday morning. German Joshua Marc, 23, had earlier rescued his friend Terri Hewitt, 38, when she was partly buried by a slide.
More than 20 members of the group who stayed in a shelter Thursday night were able to walk out after police and military personnel cleared the trail, police said.
Police said Miaoli County has received between 350mm-400mm of rain in the last two days and smallscale floods and landslides were reported all over the county. Traffic around Nanchuang Township (
Police said Yunlin County has received 250mm of rainfall and the Chuoshui River has flooded. One chicken farmer said he lost about NT$1 million after his farm flooded, killing 50,000 chickens.
Two deaths have been reported in Hsinchu County. Wu Chang-kung (吳璋坤), 59, drowned when he tried to pass a flooded area while a 33-year old man drowned when he tried to move his machines away from a riverside.
In Taitung, one man was reported missing after he fell into a river while working on the riverbank. Three farmers in Chiayi County narrowly escaped drowning when they went to harvest bamboo shoots yesterday morning. A police boat rescued them.
Police yesterday warned the public to avoid mountainous areas as heavy rain has been forecasted for the next few days.
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