Typhoon Sinlaku lashed Taiwan yesterday with powerful winds and heavy rains, disrupting flights and train services and cutting electricity supply to almost 50,000 households.
The Central Weather Bureau said that although the storm’s eyewall — the ring of towering thunderstorms surrounding the eye where the most severe weather occurs — could be damaged after hitting land, Sinlaku would maintain its structure and remain a serious threat.
The slow-moving typhoon, with a 250km radius, is not expected to completely leave Taiwan until Tuesday and will have the greatest impact sometime before this afternoon, said Fred Tsai (蔡甫甸), a senior forecaster at the bureau.
SOURCE: CENTRAL WEATHER BUREAU
During that period, rainfall in the northern, northeastern, eastern, central and southern parts of Taiwan could reach the “extremely heavy rain” or “torrential rain” categories, defined respectively as rainfall exceeding 130mm and 200mm over a 24-hour period, he said.
The mountainous areas in these regions could even see “extremely torrential rain,” which refers to rainfall exceeding 350mm in 24 hours, Tsai said, warning people across the country — particularly those in coastal and mountainous regions — to take precautions against flooding and mudslides.
The bureau said that from Friday until 4pm yesterday, accumulations had reached 591mm at Taipingshan (太平山) in Ilan County, 552mm at Lalashan (拉拉山) in Taoyuan County, 545mm in the Tonghou (桶後) area in Taipei County and 506mm at Siciousihshan (西丘斯山) in Hsinchu County.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsai said the eye of the storm was likely to skirt the nation’s northeastern coast early today, resulting in a brief period of calm weather.
At 9:15 pm last night, Sinlaku was 70km east-southeast of Ilan, moving west-northwesterly at 6kph, packing maximum sustained winds of 173kph toward the eastern coast.
A 21-year-old man was reported injured in Taoyuan County after being hit by a collapsed fence while riding his motorcycle on Friday night.
Of the 86,108 households that lost electricity from the typhoon, power was restored in all but some 6,000 as of 5:30 pm yesterday, the Central Emergency Operation Center said.
The center said 249 groups of hikers had returned from mountains they were climbing before the typhoon arrived, while seven groups, with a total of 28 people, sought shelter in the mountains after hearing of the storm.
Most rail services and domestic flights were cancelled and all international flights departing from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were suspended for seven hours from 14:30pm yesterday. Thousands of fishing boats were also sheltering in ports.
In response to the severe weather conditions, the Taiwan Railway Administration suspended all regular train services before midnight last night, while commuter trains ran as weather permitted. The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp provided only limited service. All ferry services connecting Taiwan proper to Matsu, Ludao (綠島), Lanyu (蘭嶼), Little Liouciou (小琉球) and Penghu County were canceled.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LOA IOK-SIN
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS