|
POUNDED BY DELUGE: Rescuers in inflatable boats helping people stranded in a flooded street in Taichung (above) yesterday, while people are directed to safer ground as Kalmaegi lashes the island with strong winds and downpours. -- PHOTOS: AFP
|
|
|
TAIPEI - AT LEAST 11 people have been killed and three more are missing in Taiwan, as Tropical Storm Kalmaegi brought strong winds and heavy downpours, rescuers said yesterday.
Television footage showed water pouring down a mountain road, flooding a large area of Kaohsiung county in southern Taiwan.
The Disaster Relief Centre (DRC) said a pregnant woman was rescued from a house buried in a landslide, but her brother and her one-year- old daughter died in the tragedy.
In central Taichung, an army captain fell into a gutter in his barracks and drowned, the fire agency said.
Four people drowned in Kaohsiung and Tainan, also in southern Taiwan, the DRC said.
A man and a woman were killed after the police motorboat that rescued them from their home overturned in Tainan county, it added. Three rescuers were pulled from the waters unharmed.
Water supplies to more than 650,000 households in the county were cut because of flooding, officials said.
Television footage showed firefighters using ladders to rescue several people trapped in a flooded house in coastal Yunlin county, and several drivers being rescued after hollering for help on top of their trucks in a flooded freeway in Taichung.
Officials said parts of the south had recorded up to 112cm of rain in the past 24 hours.
The storm resulted in NT$87 million (S$3.85 million) worth of crop damage, and NT$20 million in damage to livestock, according to government statistics.
Kalmaegi was downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it made landfall near Ilan county in northern Taiwan late on Thursday, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said.
It headed away from Taiwan and towards southern China early yesterday, the bureau said.
The weakening storm hit Xiapu county in China's Fujian province at 6.10pm, bringing winds of up to 90kmh, China's official Xinhua news agency said.
Before that, Fujian had evacuated 180,000 people from its coastal area and called 35,000 fishing vessels back to harbour.
Kalmaegi, the seventh typhoon in the West Pacific region this year, is expected to hit Shanghai today before taking a turn towards the Korean peninsula.
In the Philippines, the government disaster agency said two people died earlier this week as the storm pounded the country's northern corner with rain and strong winds.
Kalmaegi is the Korean word for sea gull.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, XINHUA
|
