The nation saw heavy rain and strong winds yesterday as Typhoon Chan-Hom passed north of Taiwan.
As of 8pm, the center of the typhoon was 340km northeast of Taipei, with the radius of the storm reaching 280km. It was moving northwest at 17kph.
Central Weather Bureau forecaster Chen Yi-liang (陳怡良) said the edge of the storm had touched the Bitou Cape (鼻頭角) on the nation’s northeast coast yesterday afternoon.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Should the typhoon continue on its northbound path, Chen said Taiwan would be free from the storm earlier than expected.
Despite the change in Chan-Hom’s movement, Chen said the bureau’s previous estimates for rainfall and wind speed generated by the typhoon remained the same.
Statistics from the bureau showed that Niaozuishan (鳥嘴山) in Hsinchu had accumulated 373mm of rainfall between 12am on Thursday and 6pm yesterday. Bamboo Lake (竹子湖) in Yangmingshan recorded an accumulated rainfall of 330mm.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
As the rainfall and wind intensified, hundreds of residents in Wufong (五峰) and Jianshih (尖石) in Hsinchu County were asked to evacuate to shelters.
On Pengjia Islet (彭佳嶼), which was the nation’s closest point to the typhoon, Chen said that the bureau’s observation station detected maximum wind speeds reaching level 12 on the Beaufort scale, the highest level on the scale, indicating hurricane-force winds of more than 117.4kph.
The average wind speed from the coast of Keelung to the coast near the northern part of the Taiwan Strait measured between level 8 and level 10 yesterday, indicating winds of between 61.8kph and 102.4kph, he said.
Photo: AFP
Chen added that the typhoon generated 8m-high waves on the nation’s north coast.
While Chan-Hom had already led to torrential rainfall in the mountainous areas in central and northern Taiwan yesterday, Chen warned that southern Taiwan, particularly in the mountains around Kaohsiung and Pingtung, would start seeing heavy rainfall today as a southwest wind starts blowing.
Rain in southern Taiwan could continue from tonight until tomorrow morning, Chen said.
Rain in central and southern Taiwan is expected to ease today as the typhoon moves away from Taiwan toward the coast between China’s Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, he said, adding that the radius of the storm could leave Taiwan by early this morning.
Taiwan Power Co said nearly 3,000 residents across the nation suffered power outages.
Police in New Taipei City’s Sijhih (汐止) said the body of a private security guard, surnamed Lee (李), was found at 8am yesterday.
Police said they suspect Lee climbed a retaining wall to see if the Keelung River had started to overflow its banks and fell from the wall.
Strong winds brought by Chan-Hom were also suspected to have caused a traffic accident on the No. 66 Expressway in Taoyuan on Thursday night, leading to one death and five injuries.
However, police are still investigating the cause of the accident.
Three people in Taipei and one in New Taipei City were injured, according to a report by the Central Emergency Operation Center.
Among them, a 43-year-old woman was injured by a toppled tree on Guling Street in Taipei, and a 65-year-old sustained an injury in a community park in New Taipei City’s Sindian (新店) because of a fallen tree. Two other people in Taipei were stung by bees after the tree that housed their beehive fell.
Air transportation was disrupted by the typhoon as well.
As of 5pm yesterday, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said that 178 domestic flights and 122 international flights were canceled.
Twenty-two international flights were delayed.
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