Tropical Storm Haikui, which was downgraded from a typhoon early yesterday morning as it moved away from Taiwan, caused injuries to more than 70 people across the nation, mostly in the south, the Central Emergency Operations Center said.
As of 4pm yesterday, 116 people had reported injuries from the storm, including 35 in Kaohsiung, 26 in Taitung County, 16 in Tainan, 10 in Hualien County and six in Hsinchu City. Most of these cities and counties are in southern Taiwan, where Haikui made landfall twice.
As of 1 pm yesterday, the storm was 70km southwest of outlying Penghu islands, moving west-northwest at 10kph, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Power Co
Haikui was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph and gusts of up to 126kph, it said.
The storm first came ashore in Taitung at about 3pm on Sunday, churning across the east coast and the central mountains, then crossing into the sea off Kaohsiung.
At about 4am yesterday, Haikui turned and made landfall on Taiwan for a second time, brushing Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營), then moving up the coast to a position off Tainan, before taking a west-northwesterly path, it said.
Photo courtesy of a member of the public via CNA
While Haikui had moved off Taiwan and was downgraded to a tropical storm yesterday, its forward movement had slowed, which meant that its outer bands were still affecting the country, and the land and sea warnings remained in place, it said.
Most of the injuries reported so far across Taiwan from the storm were sustained during traffic accidents caused by fallen trees, the emergency center said.
Citing data from the National Fire Agency, the center said that as of 2pm, it had received 2,592 reports of storm damage, including 1,565 of fallen trees, 696 of them in Kaohsiung and 342 in Taitung.
Meanwhile, flooding was reported in 121 areas across the nation as of 2pm, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said at the center’s meeting.
Power outages affected 260,984 households, but power was expected to be back by 11pm yesterday, state-owned Taiwan Power Co (台電) said.
Water supply was also disrupted in several regions, affecting 19,790 households, the ministry said, adding that all were expected to be restored by last night.
The storm also caused malfunctions at 555 communications base stations, which are expected to be fixed by tomorrow, it said.
As of 8am yesterday, 7,816 people in 12 cities and counties had been evacuated, the Ministry of the Interior said.
Although the worst from the storm has passed, extremely heavy rainfall is still expected in eastern Taiwan, Taichung and Kinmen, said Minister of the Interior Lin Yu-chang (林右昌), who heads the emergency center.
He urged the public to stay alert to possible disasters over the next few days.
The land warning for Taiwan proper was lifted at 8:30pm yesterday and is likely to be lifted for Kinmen early this morning, the CWB said.
The sea warning for Taiwan is likely to remain in place until this afternoon, it said.
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