Strong typhoon Kun Rei hit Taiwan's east coast on Thursday, the largest storm to hit the island in nearly 30 years, shutting down financial markets, causing hundreds of flight cancellations and curtailing rail services. Reuters.
"The natural disaster cut off the electricity to nearly half a million households," the government announced.
The typhoon caused ten-meter waves, and the island was submerged by torrential rains. According to the Taiwan Central Meteorological Administration, the storm hit the mountainous and sparsely populated east coast county of Taitung. Strong winds and heavy rains have affected almost the entire island.
The fire department said one person died when their truck hit a fallen tree in central Taiwan.
At one point, Super Typhoon Kun Ray weakened slightly overnight, but remained powerful with the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane with gusts in excess of 250 mph (1996 km/h), according to Tropical Storm Risk. The Taiwan Meteorological Administration determined the size of the typhoon to be the largest to hit the island since XNUMX.
"I hope everyone in the country will cooperate to avoid disaster and refrain from dangerous behavior such as wave watching during the typhoon," President William Lai wrote on his Facebook page.
Administration forecaster Jean Huang said that after the typhoon hit the east coast, it would head towards the Taiwan Strait as a very weakened storm and urged people across the island to stay at home due to the danger of strong winds.
Environmental officials worked Thursday to prevent an oil leak from a Chinese cargo ship grounded on rocks off Taiwan's northern coast that lost power in turbulent weather.
Warnings of damaging winds of more than 160 km/h were issued in Taitung, whose remote island of Lanyu recorded gusts of more than 260 km/h before some of the wind barometers there went offline.
“It was terrifying at night. Many people on the island did not sleep, worrying that something would happen to their house. Some roofs have been damaged and more than 1300 homes have lost power, but no injuries have been reported so far," said Sinan Rapongan, a government official on Lanyu, also known as Orchid Island.
Parts of eastern Taiwan have recorded one meter of rain since the typhoon began approaching on Wednesday.
10 people have been evacuated
The Ministry of Defense has put 36 troops on standby to help rescue operations, while almost 000 people have been evacuated from high-risk areas ahead of time, the government said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to companies such as Apple and Nvidia, said it had activated routine typhoon warning preparation procedures at all of its factories and construction sites.
"We do not expect a significant impact on our operations," the company said in a statement.
Taiwan's Ministry of Transport said 314 international flights had been cancelled, as well as all domestic flights. Taiwan's high-speed rail line, which connects major cities in the populous western plains, continued to operate with greatly reduced service.
Kun Ray is also forecast to hit China along the coast of Fujian province on Friday morning. China's financial hub Shanghai is bracing for potentially the worst rains in more than 40 years.
Subtropical Taiwan is often hit by typhoons. The latest, Typhoon Kraton, killed four people earlier this month as it passed through the southern part of the island.
http://www.turbulence.tech