Estimated agricultural losses caused by Typhoon Danas have climbed to nearly NT$1.1 billion (US$37.84 million), the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said yesterday.
As of 8am yesterday, crop damage had covered 9,822 hectares of farmland, more than 1.5 percent of Taiwan’s arable land, with an average loss rate of 30 percent, equivalent to 2,977 hectares of total crop failure, it said.
The most affected crop was pomeloes, with 923 hectares damaged at 51 percent, equivalent to 469 hectares of crop failure, and losses of up to NT$138.86 million.
Photo: Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Other severely affected crops included bananas (NT$134.91 million), bamboo shoots (NT$83.27 million), oranges (NT$63.48 million) and tangerines (NT$55.18 million).
To aid recovery, the ministry has activated emergency cash relief and low-interest loan programs for the hardest-hit areas of Tainan, Chiayi County and Chiayi City.
For crops classified as severely damaged, on-site inspections have been waived to speed up assistance, the ministry said, adding that farmers lacking planting records may submit photographic evidence via the ministry’s disaster reporting app.
More than 400 offshore wind turbines were undamaged, while electricity was restored to more than 450,000 households affected by power outages, the Energy Administration and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) said yesterday.
More than 400 wind turbines had been installed in the Taiwan Strait as of the end of May, with 375 connected to the grid, bringing the combined grid-connected capacity to more than 3 gigawatts, Energy Administration data showed.
The agency on Monday said it had previously instructed operators to regularly report turbine status and generation conditions as part of standard safety protocols. Following confirmation with operators, no turbine damage has been reported so far, it added.
In 2017, Taiwan and Japan jointly adopted a typhoon-resistance standard requiring offshore turbines to meet Class T specifications, agency officials said.
Under this standard, turbines are required to be able to withstand sustained wind speeds of 57 meters per second over 10 minutes — equivalent to a Beaufort scale 17 wind, or a typhoon — exceeding the strength required by Europe’s Class 1A standard, they said.
The turbines are designed to automatically shut down and lock their blades when wind speeds exceed 25 meters per second to prevent mechanical damage, the officials said.
Meanwhile, Taipower said that Typhoon Danas caused the collapse of more than 650 electricity poles and three transmission towers, cutting power to more than 710,000 households at the storm’s peak.
As of 6pm on Monday, power had been restored to more than 450,000 households — more than 60 percent of those affected, the company said.
Chiayi County and Chiayi City were among the hardest-hit areas, with more than 250,000 power outages reported, while nearly 190,000 households in Tainan also lost electricity, Taipower said.
More than 4,000 personnel were mobilized for emergency repairs, the company said.
Typhoon Danas made landfall late on Sunday in Chiayi County’s Budai Township (布袋) and weakened into a tropical storm early on Monday before moving north of Taiwan on Monday evening.
Wind gusts at a staffed station in Tainan reached 41.1 meters per second at 10:52pm on Sunday, the third-highest wind speed ever recorded at the city’s station, the Central Weather Administration said.
The storm left two people dead and injured 502.
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