Typhoon slams into Taiwan, at least two missing
Posted: 15 September 2008 0233 hrs

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TAIPEI: A powerful typhoon pounded Taiwan on Sunday with fierce winds and torrential rains, leaving at least two people missing and 17 others injured, officials said.

Traffic was severely disrupted as Typhoon Sinlaku made landfall in northeastern Ilan county on Sunday, packing winds of up to 173 kilometres per hour, the Central Weather Bureau said.

TV reports said two small cars carrying an unknown number of people had been washed away by a river after a bridge collapsed in central Taiwan.

Hundreds of domestic and international flights have been cancelled on the island, and around 500 passengers were stranded in Kinmen airport, a Taiwan-controlled offshore island near the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen.

Traffic on 20 highways was interrupted by landslides caused by heavy rains, which have accumulated up to 1,000 millimetres in some remote mountainous areas over the weekend.

Power and telephone services were also disrupted to nearly 100,000 households as trees were uprooted by the strong winds.

Some 250 residents in northern mountain villages were evacuated to safety, said the National Fire Agency which coordinates Taiwan's rescue missions.

The typhoon lost momentum after making landfall but weather forecasters warned residents that heavy rain would continue.

"The typhoon kept losing force over the past three hours," said a weather bureau official. It packed gusts of 119 kilometres per hour, down from 124 kilometres recorded earlier in the day.

"However, people must not relax their vigilance as the typhoon is expected to spark more rains in the day to come," he said.

A worker was washed away by flash floods while fixing a power system in the central Nantou county. A 69-year-old farmer was reported missing in the central Changhua county when visiting his paddy field, the National Fire Agency said.

Seventeen people were injured, including two hit by debris, while four were hurt when their bus crashed in southern Taiwan, it said.

At 1000 GMT, the centre of the typhoon was 40 kilometres west of the northern city of Keelung. With a radius of 250 kilometres, Typhoon Sinlaku was moving northeast towards Japan.

On the southeastern coast of mainland China, more than 170,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying coastal regions in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.

Sinlaku evoked painful memories of Typhoon Nari, which hit Taiwan in September 2001, leaving 94 people dead and causing severe flooding.

Two tropical storms pounded the island in July, leaving at least 22 people dead and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to agriculture. - AFP/de