Legion of Angels News Archive

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Raging floods and rivers swollen by Typhoon Sinlaku killed at least two people and left a further seven missing and presumed dead in central Taiwan, authorities said Monday as the storm barreled toward Japan.

Soldiers and rescuers in Taichung County searched for five people who remained missing after a section of a 2,000-foot-long bridge over the Tachia River collapsed on Sunday night.

CTI Cable News reported rescue workers as saying three cars plunged into the furious river after the water rose too high and washed part of the bridge away. Police recovered one body, identified as a 32-year-old engineer, the report said.

Pillars supporting the bridge gave way under pressure from the raging waters, the Apple Daily quoted highway official Chen Chin-yuan as saying.

The accident occurred just as highway maintenance workers were about to close the bridge to traffic, Transport Minister Mao Chih-kuo said Monday as he inspected the bridge.

Elsewhere in central Taiwan, a driver was killed when his car skidded in heavy rain and crashed into a road railing, and a utility company electrician and a farmer were washed away by rampaging flood waters, the Disaster Relief Center said.

Sinlaku slammed into the northeast coast of Taiwan on Sunday, bringing torrential rain and strong winds to the North Asian island. Mountainous regions recorded more than 40 inches of rain, and several large rivers overflowed their banks, forcing authorities to evacuate hundreds of people, the disaster center said.

Sinlaku was centered at sea 86 miles north of Keelung on the northern tip of Taiwan, moving northeast at a speed of 4 miles per hour as of 8.00 am local time (2000 EST Sunday), the Central Weather Bureau reported.

The bureau said Sinlaku would likely make landfall in southern Japan by Wednesday, and that it could be downgraded from typhoon status.

Source — Yahoo!

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – Soldiers and Buddhist volunteers helped Taiwanese villagers clean up their homes Tuesday after a powerful typhoon churned through, killing at least two people and leaving a trail of flooded buildings, damaged orchards and caved-in roads.

Typhoon Fung Wong hit Taiwan just before dawn Monday, packing winds of 167kph (105mph). It left the island, heading for the Chinese mainland, about nine hours later.

In the neighboring Philippines at least four people were killed and five were missing, including a 3-year-old girl and her mother, after Fung Wong skirted past the northern provinces on its way to Taiwan, officials said Tuesday. About 10,000 Filipinos were affected by the typhoon.

In Taiwan, soldiers used shovels to remove ankle-deep mud from homes in villages in eastern Hualien county, where the typhoon made landfall.

In a briefing to President Ma Ying-jeou, Hualien County Chief Hsieh Shen-shan said agricultural damage to the county amounted to more than 160 million New Taiwan dollars ($5.3 million).

Elsewhere in the county, he said, workers were repairing caved-in mountain roads that had blocked traffic in both directions.

The storm dumped more than 82cm (33 inches) of rain in Hualien, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said.

Television stations reported that authorities were closely monitoring several bridges where supports sustained damage from Fung Wong and tropical storm Kalmaegi, which killed 19 people when it struck Taiwan earlier this month.

Typhoons frequently hit Taiwan between July and September, often triggering flash floods and landslides in overly developed mountainous regions.

The typhoon had weakened into a tropical storm when it hit the Chinese mainland.

Source — CNN