The Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) South Link Line was closed yesterday after landslides eroded the track bed between Taitung County’s Taimali (太麻里) and Jhiben (知本) townships, the administration said.
Services on the 98.2km-long railway line from Pingtung County’s Fangliao to Taitung were suspended for the day due to difficulties in repairing the damage and persistent rain, the administration said.
Taitung County has been hit especially hard by heavy rain in recent days, and the Central Weather Bureau has forecast extremely heavy to heavy rain for north and east Taiwan, as well as the Hengchun Peninsula yesterday afternoon.
Photo: Chen Hsien-yi, Taipei Times
Parts of Keelung and Taitung counties had extremely torrential rain — defined as 500mm of rain or more in a 24-hour period — yesterday, the bureau said.
Parts of New Taipei City and Taipei, as well as Pingtung, Yilan and Hualien counties, experienced extremely heavy rain — 200mm or more in a 24-hour period — the bureau said.
The bureau forecast occasional heavy rain in coastal areas in Keelung and Pingtung counties and mountainous areas in greater Taipei from last night to today.
The Soil and Water Conservation Bureau also extended its landslide warnings to areas near 95 rivers in Taitung County.
The weather bureau said tropical storm Songda has formed in the Pacific and although it is not expected to approach Taiwan, it and tropical storm Aere, hovering off the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, are likely to continue to bring rain to Taiwan for the next few days.
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