Taiwan evacuated more than three thousand people this Tuesday (11), issuing a land alert for the arrival of Typhoon Fung-wong, which is expected to bring large volumes of rain to the country’s mountainous east coast, which was recently hit by another typhoon.
The forecast is that the phenomenon, which is weakening, will reach the southwest coast of the island on Wednesday (12), close to the important port of Kaohsiung, after having a much stronger system.
“Fung-wong may have been downgraded to a weak typhoon, but we still cannot let our guard down,” Chen Chi-mai, the city’s mayor, told reporters.
On his Facebook page, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te asked people to stay away from mountains, the coast and other potentially dangerous areas.
The Ministry of Transport reported that 66 flights, most of them domestic, were canceled this Tuesday.
Typhoon Fung-wong is expected to cross the southern part of Taiwan and enter the Pacific Ocean along the coast of sparsely populated Taitung and Hualien counties in the east of the country.
One that killed 18 people in Hualien.
The government, which ordered the evacuation of the city of Guangfu, the site of the deadly floods, said 3,337 people in four counties and cities had been moved to safer areas.
Schools and offices were closed in Hualien this Tuesday (11), as was the neighboring county of Yilan.
The typhoon will not directly affect the northern city of Hsinchu, headquarters of TSMC (2330.TW), the world’s largest custom chipmaker.
Most of the deaths in the Philippines were caused by landslides in the mountainous Cordillera region in the north of the country, senior Civil Defense official Raffy Alejandro said at a press conference.
Two people were reported missing and 28 were injured.
