Typhoon Nepartak ravaged Taitung yesterday, while pummeling much of the country with strong, gusty winds and heavy rain.
At 4:37am yesterday, a weather station recorded gusts of 205kph in Taitung City, which reached the highest level of 17 — referring to gusts that measure between 202kph and 220kph — on the extended Beaufort wind force scale, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.
The previous record was recorded in 1955, when Typhoon Iris hit the nation.
Photo: Chang Tsun-wei, Taipei Times
At that time, gusts reached 186kph, the bureau said.
The first storm of this year’s Pacific typhoon season made landfall at 5:50am yesterday in Taitung’s mountainous Taimali Township (太麻里).
It then ravaged the county, toppling trees, ripping off rooftops, overturning cars on the streets and knocking down street signs and utility poles. The strong winds blew off the roof of a container house in Taimali, injuring a family of four. One female family member, reported to be in critical condition, was rushed to hospital.
Photo: Liu Yu-ching, Taipei Times
At press time last night, 142 people were reportedly injured, mostly in Taitung.
The Taitung branch of Mackay Memorial Hospital and Taitung Christian Hospital activated emergency measures to take care of the wounded, most of whom sustained injuries to the head and limbs.
Most were cut by fallen glass or fell on the streets, hospital officials said.
Photo: Wnat Hsiu-ting, Taipei Times
As of yesterday morning, the Taitung County Government’s Fire Department had received more than 300 reports of fallen signboards and trees.
According to government statistics, there were three deaths reported as Nepartak approached Taiwan on Thursday.
One of them was a soldier based in the offshore county of Lienchiang, which consists mainly of the Matsu islands.
Photo: Chang Tsun-wei, Taipei Times
The soldier was fishing on the coast of Dongying (東引) islet in Penghu when he fell into the sea because of the strong winds.
His body was recovered yesterday morning, local authorities said.
At about noon on Thursday, a man was reported to have drowned near Cisingtan Beach (七星潭), a top tourist attraction in the eastern county of Hualien.
Photo: Chang Tsun-wei, Taipei Times
The third fatality was a 71 year-old woman who died from severe wounds after being hit by a falling wardrobe in Taitung.
CWB said the eye of Typhoon Nepartak left land and entered the Taiwan Strait from Tainan’s Jiangjun District (將軍) at 2:30pm, moving northwest at 12kph.
With a radius of 200km, the storm was carrying maximum sustained winds of 155kph, with gusts of up to 191kph.
While the typhoon was heading toward the outlying islands of Penghu and Kinmen, people there were advised to remain alert for strong winds and heavy rain brought by the storm.
Bureau forecaster Chen Yi-liang (陳怡良) said that although the wind and rain had abated, the volume of rainfall in Hualien, Taitung, Pingtung, Kaohsiung and Tainan was already as high as 40mm, with rain continuing to fall.
The bureau also warned of extreme torrential rain in Kaohsiung and the counties of Hualien, Taitung, Pingtung and Chiayi; and of torrential rain in Taichung and Tainan, and the counties of Yilan, Nantou and Yunlin.
Meanwhile, unscheduled short-haul train service resumed in northern Taiwan yesterday afternoon after train lines across the nation were shut down for much of the day because of the storm.
The Taiwan Railways Administration advised passengers to get the latest train information from its official Web site — www.railway.gov.tw — or through its two telephone hotlines — 02-2191-0096 and 0800-765888 — before traveling.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) instructed the Ministry of National Defense and the Council of Agriculture to assist Taitung in recovery efforts after the devastation left by Nepartak.
Lin said the council should also pay close attention to the damage that the storm might have brought to the agricultural sector, while instructing the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to repair highways damaged during the typhoon as soon as possible.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), in a separate inspection of the Central Emergency Operations Center in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店), also instructed all concerned agencies and local governments to assist with reconstruction work and endeavor to ensure that the public is able to return to normal life as soon as possible.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin and Stacy Hsu
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS