The southwest braced for strong winds and rain brought by Tropical Storm Haitang yesterday afternoon, less than 24 hours after Typhoon Nesat pummeled the nation, injuring 111 people.
According to the Central Weather Bureau, Haitang’s eye made landfall in Pingtung County’s Fonggang (楓港) at 4:40pm and was moving northwest at 12kph.
It was the first time since 1958 that two tropical storms made landfall in Taiwan within 24 hours.
Photo: The Taiwan Military News Agency via EPA
The bureau projected that Haitang would move across the southeast and the central mountain range before reaching the west coast.
Residents in Nantou, Hualien and Taitung counties, as well as counties south of Chiayi, were on high alert for damage.
Although Haitang is to gradually weaken into a tropical depression, the bureau said that the southwest monsoon induced by the storm would continue to bring rain nationwide until Thursday.
Bureau statistics showed that both Nesat and Haitang have contributed to significant rainfall nationwide.
As of 6:15pm, Jiadong Township (佳冬) in Pingtung County had the highest accumulated rainfall of 640mm, followed by Taipingshan (太平山) in Yilan County (487mm) and the area south of Tianchi (天池) in Kaohsiung County (407mm).
Apart from Jiadong, heavy rains caused flooding in seven other townships in Pingtung County, which has suffered the most damage caused by the storms.
As of 7pm, the Central Emergency Operations Center reported that 111 people had been injured since Saturday.
About 1,300 people remain in shelters, it said, adding that power has yet to be restored to about 52,000 households.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration said that 267 domestic flights were canceled yesterday, while 138 international flights were canceled and 101 were either delayed or postponed.
The Maritime Port Bureau also reported that 163 shipping services were canceled yesterday and that 104 shipping services would be canceled today.
The Taiwan Railways Administration said the operation of the Alishan Forest Railway would be canceled for today.
As of 5pm, agricultural losses were estimated at NT$171.89 million (US$5.67 million). Yilan County, where Nesat made landfall, shouldered 68 percent of the loss.
It was followed by Pingtung County (24 percent), Hualien County (3 percent), New Taipei City (2 percent) and Taitung (1 percent).
The three most severely damaged crops were green onions (159 hectares), guavas (125 hectares) and bananas (233 hectares).
Nesat also damaged 199 schools nationwide, with the cost estimated at NT$17.8 million, data released yesterday afternoon by the Ministry of Education showed.
The highest percentage of schools reporting facility damage was in Yilan County, with 75 schools in need of repairs, followed by 66 schools in Taipei and 29 in New Taipei City.
Additional reporting by CNA
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS