Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide.
Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said.
The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale.
Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely to hit coastal areas today, the CWA said.
President William Lai (賴清德) urged people to stay away from the mountains and coast.
Photo: AP
“I would like to urge my friends in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert,” Lai wrote on Facebook.
The Ministry of National Defense said it had put about 36,000 troops on standby across the nation.
A CWA forecaster said it was relatively rare for a strong typhoon to directly hit Taiwan this late in the year, pointing to the favorable environment for typhoons, including warmer sea temperatures in the Pacific and later-than-normal cold fronts from the north.
Photo: AFP
“We must urge people to make preparations. It’s a strong typhoon with a large size,” he added.
Heavy rain is also expected in the north around Taipei throughout the day today, the CWA said.
Extremely heavy rain or torrential rain advisories were in effect from yesterday evening through early tomorrow for mountainous areas of Yilan and Hualien counties, with other rain advisories for the Keelung north coast, Taipei, New Taipei City, Taitung County, Taoyuan, Hsinchu County, Taichung, the Hengchun Peninsula, Orchid (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green (綠島) islands.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said at least 26 ferry trips to outlying counties had been stopped yesterday, while UNI Air (立榮航空) and Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) separately said that they had canceled all domestic flights for today.
China Airlines (中華航空), Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航), Singapore Airlines and Starlux Airlines (星宇航空) issued notices of delays, rescheduling or cancelations of international flights to and from Taiwan.
People planning to fly to, from, or within Taiwan today are advised to check their flight status on their carrier’s Web site.
Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest storm to hit Taiwan in 27 years, the CWA said.
Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a typhoon and its band of strongest winds — had expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said.
The last time that a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, Chang said.
A weather station on Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of rainfall in a single day during that storm on July 31, 1996, he added.
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