SIA, Scoot flights between Singapore and Taipei affected as Typhoon Kong-rey hits Taiwan

TAIPEI/SINGAPORE – Several flights between Singapore and Taipei were affected on Oct 31 as super Typhoon Kong-rey made landfall on Taiwan’s east coast at 1.40pm.

The 5.35pm Singapore Airlines (SIA) Flight SQ879 from Taipei to Singapore was cancelled, while Flight SQ878 from Singapore to Taipei was diverted to Hong Kong “due to weather conditions caused by the typhoon”, the carrier said in a media reply.

SQ878 had been scheduled to land in Taiwan at 4.20pm. It had 317 passengers and 14 crew on board, and landed uneventfully in Hong Kong at around 5.10pm, an SIA spokesperson said.

A passenger on the diverted flight told The Straits Times that the plane tried to land in Taiwan a few times but was unsuccessful.

Ms Natalee Ho, 30, said there was turbulence when the plane tried to land in Taipei and that the flight was slightly “bumpier than usual”.

“I was okay, but at least three people around me were vomiting,” the lawyer added.

“We were told that the flight was diverted because of fuel considerations, and that the weather does not look like it will let up,” she said, adding that the passengers on board looked disappointed but were civil.

She said the flight was brought forward by about two hours.

“I was not too worried about the typhoon. I figured if it was bad, they’d just not let us fly.”

SIA said it provided meals and meal vouchers for affected passengers in Hong Kong, before they were flown back to Singapore at around 7pm. The airline said it would arrange for hotel accommodation for affected passengers in Singapore, and rebook them on other flights to Taipei.

“SIA sincerely apologises to all customers for the inconvenience caused and is providing all necessary assistance to the affected customers,” the spokesperson said.

In response to queries, budget airline Scoot said three Singapore-Japan flights that transit in Taipei were cancelled on Oct 31. They were TR874, TR893 and TR875.

TR874 was supposed to leave Changi at 8.55am for Tokyo, with a transit stop in Taipei scheduled for 1.40pm.

TR893 was due to leave Chitose, Hokkaido, for Singapore at 5.30pm local time, while TR875 was supposed to take off from Tokyo at 8pm local time, for Singapore.

Scoot said it was contacting the affected passengers, and apologised for the inconvenience caused.

“We will continue to monitor the situation with Typhoon Kong-Rey and adjust our flight schedules as necessary,” the spokesperson added.

More than 400 domestic and international flights were cancelled, while all ferry services were suspended, AFP reported. 

The storm hit the mountainous and sparsely populated east coast county of Taitung, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration, with strong winds and torrential rain affecting almost all the island.

A super typhoon at one point, Kong-rey weakened slightly overnight but remained powerful – equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane packing gusts of over 250kmh, according to Tropical Storm Risk.

Taiwan’s weather administration said it would be the biggest typhoon in size to hit the island since 1996. It was of the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most powerful storm to hit Taiwan in eight years when it made landfall in July, but Kong-rey’s radius of 320km made it the biggest in nearly three decades.

At least one person was killed – a 56-year-old woman, after a falling tree crushed her vehicle in the central county of Nantou – and 73 injured during wild weather, the National Fire Agency said.

It added that at least 34 mudslides have been recorded, while 162 buildings were damaged and 366 trees felled.

The authorities have evacuated more than 9,600 people from their homes in vulnerable counties and cities, including Yilan, Hualien and Taitung, the National Fire Agency said.

Hualien encountered “very serious” flooding, the county’s fire department chief Wang Ming-chung said, with rescues and evacuations still under way. But uprooted trees had fallen on cars and blocked roads, hampering response efforts, an employee in a township administrative office there told AFP.

The typhoon also knocked out power to nearly half a million households, the government said.

President Lai Ching-te wrote on Facebook that he hoped everyone in Taiwan “will cooperate in avoiding disaster, and refrain from engaging in dangerous behaviour such as wave watching during the typhoon”.

All cities and counties have declared a day off, and financial markets have closed as well.

Administration forecaster Gene Huang said that after hitting the east coast, the typhoon would head towards the Taiwan Strait as a much weakened storm, and urged people across the island to stay home due to the danger of high winds.

Environmental officials were working on Oct 31 to prevent oil from leaking from a Chinese cargo ship beached against rocks on Taiwan’s northern coast after losing power in turbulent weather.

Warnings about destructive winds of more than 160kmh were issued in the eastern county of Taitung, whose outlying Lanyu island recorded gusts above 260kmh before some of the wind barometers there went offline.

“It was terrifying last night. Many people on the island didn’t sleep, worrying about something happening to their house,” Ms Sinan Rapongan, a government official on Lanyu, also known as Orchid island, told Reuters.

Some roofs had been damaged and more than 1,300 homes had lost power, but no injuries had been reported so far, she added.

Parts of eastern Taiwan recorded 1m of rainfall since the typhoon began approaching on Oct 30.

The Defence Ministry has put 36,000 troops on standby to help with rescue efforts, while almost 10,000 people were evacuated from high-risk areas ahead of time, the government said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to companies like Apple and Nvidia, said it activated routine typhoon alert preparation procedures at all its factories and construction sites.

“We do not expect significant impact to our operations,” it said in an e-mailed statement.

Kong-rey is forecast to graze China along the coast of Fujian province on the morning of Nov 1. Shanghai, the country’s financial hub, is bracing itself for what could be its worst downpour in more than 40 years.

Subtropical Taiwan is frequently hit by typhoons. The last one, Typhoon Krathon, killed four people earlier in October as it passed through the south of the island. AFP, REUTERS