Taiwan issued a land warning on Tuesday and evacuated more than 3,000 people ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Fung-wong which, while weakening, is expected to dump large amounts of rain on the island’s mountainous east coast.
Fung-wong is forecast to make landfall on Taiwan’s southwestern coast around the major port city of Kaohsiung on Wednesday, after powering through the Philippines as a much stronger system and killing 18 people.
It is then expected to cross the bottom part of Taiwan and enter the Pacific Ocean along the coast of the sparsely populated eastern counties of Taitung and Hualien.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, writing on his Facebook page, said people should not head into the mountains or go to the coast or other potentially dangerous areas.
In September, 18 people died in Hualien in flooding unleashed by an earlier typhoon.
The government has already ordered evacuations in the town of Guangfu, the scene of those deadly floods, and said a total of 3,337 people in four counties and cities had been moved to safer areas.
Hualien closed schools and offices on Tuesday, as did the neighbouring county of Yilan.
The typhoon will not directly affect the northern city of Hsinchu, home to TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
Most deaths in the Philippines were caused by landslides in its mountainous northern Cordilleras, senior civil defence official Raffy Alejandro told a briefing, with two people reported missing and 28 injured.
(REUTERS)