Typhoon Kong-rey made landfall this Thursday in Taitung County, on the east coast of Taiwan, with wind gusts of more than 220 kilometers per hour (km/h)equal to a class 4 hurricane in accordance with the Saffir-(*27*) Scale, as reported by the Central Meteorological Agency (CWA) of Taiwan.
The storm broke out close to the municipality of Chenggong after 1:40 p.m. native time (05:40 GMT), with sustained winds of 183.6 km/h in its heart and gusts of as much as 226.8 kilometers per hourin accordance with the most recent observations of the CWA.
With an approximate radius of 320 kilometers, This storm is the most important to hit the island since Typhoon Herb, which between July and August 1996 left more than 800 useless throughout its passage by means of Taiwan, China and the Japanese Ryukyu archipelago.
The meteorological company estimates that Kong-rey will proceed its path by means of the middle of the island and will arrive in Taiwan Strait at eveningalready like a storm of decrease depth.
“Extremely torrential rains”
The CWA has decreed a maritime and land alert for storm for all the island territory, together with the peripheral archipelagos of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu, and has issued warnings for “extraordinarily torrential rains” in Hsinchu (north), Taichung (heart), Taitung, Hualien and Yilan (east).
So far, the storm has prompted 27 injured and two missingin accordance with the Central Emergency Operations Command (CEOC), which additionally indicated that more than 8,600 individuals had been evacuated from 9 counties and cities.
Furthermore, it has prompted floods, landslides and tree collapses and site visitors indicators in numerous elements of the island, particularly on its east coast, the place roughly 5% of the Taiwanese inhabitants resides.
Power outages in houses
Likewise, more than 153,000 houses have skilled energy outages and more than 63,500 of them had been nonetheless with out electrical energy at 12:00 p.m. (04:00 GMT), in accordance with the most recent figures from the state electrical energy firm Taipower, which has deployed about 10,000 staff to revive service as quickly as attainable.
In this context, the authorities selected to droop courses and workplace work on account of stormwhich has additionally led to the cancellation of more than 500 flights home and worldwide and the lower in high-speed practice service.
Taiwan is especially delicate to pure disasters akin to earthquakes and typhoons: earlier this month, storm Krathon left no less than 4 useless, more than 700 injured and million-dollar losses in the island’s agricultural sector.
