Three people have died and four are missing, while 50 injuries have been reported, as torrential downpours have been pummeling Taiwan for the past week, the Central Emergency Operation Center (CEOC) said yesterday.
The three deaths occurred on Wednesday and Thursday last week as a result of vehicle accidents during bad weather — two in Kaohsiung and one in Nantou County, according to CEOC data valid as of 6:30pm yesterday.
Photo: Taipei Times
One of the fatalities was a 57-year-old man who drowned on Thursday when he rode into a heavily flooded street in Nantou that had been closed off by police, the county's police department said.
Twenty minutes later, his body was found submerged in 2m of floodwater on the road, the police said.
The other two deaths occurred on Wednesday when a vehicle carrying a family of five plunged into a ravine along Provincial Highway No. 20 in Kaohsiung during bad weather, the center said.
Two bodies were recovered, while three of the passengers remained missing as of yesterday, it said.
The fourth missing person is the rider of a scooter that was found along Provincial Highway No. 29 in Kaohsiung's Cishan District (旗山) on Saturday, the center said without elaborating.
The two highway sections in Kaohsiung have been closed pending repairs, and only emergency disaster relief vehicles are allowed to drive through there, the CEOC said in a statement issued after a meeting at 3pm yesterday.
Meanwhile, 50 people across Taiwan have been injured in incidents related to the torrential downpours, including more than 20 in Kaohsiung and about 12 in Changhua County, the center said.
As of yesterday afternoon, a total of 5,795 people across Taiwan had been evacuated, and 588 of them were being housed in 36 shelters, the CEOC said.
Twenty of the 36 shelters have been stocked with supplies that can last for up to 10 days, as they are in areas that could be cut off due to bad weather, the CEOC said.
Disrupted landlines, broadband and media-on-demand (MOD) services are expected to be fully restored tomorrow, Chunghwa Telecom chairman Alex Chien (簡志誠) told lawmakers today.
However, 33 damaged mobile base stations are not expected to be fully repaired until late October, he added.
Temporary mobile stations have been deployed to provide network coverage, he said.
As of Thursday last week, 2,141 landlines, 764 broadband services, 33 MOD services and 33 base stations had yet to be restored in Tainan, Chiayi city and county, and Yunlin County, Chunghwa Telecom data showed.
Also yesterday, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) inspected the CEOC headquarters in Taipei and received disaster briefings via video conferencing from Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲), Chiayi County Commissioner Weng Chang-liang (翁章梁) and Pingtung County Commissioner Chou Chun-mi (周春米).
Chen suggested that funding for relief from the current disaster be included in a special bill proposed by the Cabinet for recovery and rebuilding of southwestern Taiwan in the wake of Typhoon Danas, which hit the area early last month.
Cho said the Cabinet would take into consideration the recent disasters caused by heavy rainfall — more than 2,000mm in mountainous areas of Kaohsiung — before the bill is reviewed by the Cabinet on Thursday and later sent to the legislature.
Additional reporting by Kayleigh Madjar
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