Taiwan | Two dead and 580 injured after typhoon Kong-rey

(Taipei) Rescuers and cleaning services are at work in Taiwan on Friday after the passage of Kong-reyone of the biggest typhoons the island has experienced in recent decades and which left at least two dead and 580 injured.

The storm, accompanied by gusts reaching 184 km/h and torrential rains, made landfall Thursday early in the afternoon in the southeast of the territory, and swept the entire island, uprooting trees, causing flooding and landslides.

A 48-year-old motorcyclist was killed by a falling power pole in Taipei on Thursday, and a 56-year-old woman died after a tree fell on her vehicle in central Nantou County, said the national fire agency, while 580 other people were injured.

Searches are underway to find four people who went hunting in the mountains of central Taiwan on Wednesday and who have not been heard from.

Two Czech hikers stranded in Hualien County’s Taroko Park during the typhoon were rescued Friday.

As it crossed the Taiwan Strait toward China on Friday, Kong-rey weakened to a severe tropical storm, according to the Central Meteorological Administration.

Across Taiwan, work and classes have resumed, and stores and restaurants have reopened.

However, around 78,500 homes are still without power and 191 domestic and international flights have been canceled.

Dozens of train and ferry connections remain suspended.

“The typhoon was so strong,” reports Pan Li-chu, interviewed by AFP in front of his restaurant in Taipei, where the awning bent with the force of the wind.

Observe the damage

Torrential rains hit the town of Toucheng in the Yilan region, sending mud and debris into the streets.

The floods reached the garden of Wu Hsuan-Kai, 55, who was watching television on Thursday when he heard a strange “rumbling sound”.

“When I opened the door, I saw a mudslide coming slowly, I grabbed my car keys and I ran,” he told AFP.

In the Taitung region (South-East) where the typhoon first hit, the damage concerns “mainly trees which fell and crashed on electricity poles and caused power outages”, explained a fire chief, who only gave his last name, Huang.

Rising at dawn

Across the island, maintenance workers got up at dawn to collect trees, branches and other debris from the roads.

“We started cleaning from 5 a.m. and we only cleaned one section of road, it took us about two and a half hours,” Lee Chia-hsin told AFP , a member of the New Taipei City clean-up team.

Taiwan is used to tropical storms, frequent from July to October, but it is “unusual for such a powerful typhoon to hit the island this late in the year,” notes meteorologist Chang Chun-yao.

Climate change is increasing their intensity, with heavy downpours, flash floods and very strong gusts of wind, scientists say.

Kong-rey is the third typhoon to hit Taiwan since July.

This summer, the typhoon Gaemi killed ten people and injured hundreds, causing widespread flooding in the southern city of Kaohsiung.