Taiwanese authorities said nearly 80 people were injured when Typhoon Haikui hit the island, forcing the evacuation of 7,000 people from high-risk areas.
According to authorities, the vast majority of those injured suffered only minor injuries caused by falling trees, uprooted by high winds or car accidents.
The hardest hit area was Taitung, a relatively sparsely populated and mountainous region in eastern Taiwan, where a coastal highway was partially destroyed by the force of the waves.
Haikui, the first typhoon to pass directly over Taiwan in four years, forced authorities to evacuate more than 7,000 people from high-risk areas in the east of the island and suspend operations on at least three railway lines.
At least 264 flights were canceled and schools and businesses closed, and are still closed in 14 cities in Taiwan due to persistent torrential rains.
More than 217,000 homes were temporarily without power on Sunday and 58,000 remained without power this morning.
After crossing eastern Taiwan, Haikui approached the southeast of the island today, near the port city of Kaohsiung, at a time when it had already lost strength and was classified as a tropical storm.
Still, according to local media, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s third-largest city, roads were inundated and tree-covered streets were uprooted by maximum sustained winds of 101 km/h and gusts of up to 126 km/h.
If it maintains its westward trajectory, the Haikui should cross the South China Sea today, heading toward Fujian or Guangdong provinces in eastern China.
The Chinese region of Macao issued an alert signal 1 for the approach of Haikui at 4:00 a.m. (9:00 p.m. Sunday in Lisbon), 28 hours after the last alert was lowered due to the super typhoon. Saola.
The tropical storm warning scale is made up of signals 1, 3, 8, 9 and 10, whose emission depends on the proximity of the storm and the intensity of the wind.
Macao has reissued Alert Signal 1, just 28 hours after the last alert issued for the passage of Super Typhoon Saola was lowered.
As in mainland China and the neighboring Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong, Macao even issued the highest alert, level 10, due to Saola, registering 250 people in emergency reception centers and five injured.
Source: TSF
