Taiwan evacuates thousands ahead of tropical storm Fung-wong after deaths in Philippines

Taiwan evacuated more than 3,000 people from vulnerable areas and closed schools and offices on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of tropical storm Fung-wong, which killed at least 18 people and displaced more than 1.4 million in the Philippines after making landfall there Sunday.

Fung-wong was classified as a typhoon but is losing intensity as it approaches Taiwan and is expected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon or evening near the southwestern port city of Kaohsiung.

On Tuesday morning, the storm had maximum sustained winds of up to 108 kph and gusts of 137 kph and is expected to sweep across the island and exit from its northeastern side Wednesday evening or early Thursday, Taiwan’s weather agency said.

More than 3,300 people from four counties and cities have been evacuated near the eastern township of Guangfu, where flooding from a typhoon in September caused a barrier lake to overflow, killing 18 people.

Schools and offices were closed on Tuesday in Hualien and Yilan counties, while weather authorities issued a land warning covering south and southwestern areas including Kaohsiung, Pingtung County, Tainan and Taitung.

China activated an emergency typhoon response for its southeastern Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Hainan provinces.

Fung-wong slammed into the northeastern Philippine coast from the Pacific on Sunday as a super typhoon with maximum sustained winds of 185 kph and gusts of up to 230 kph. The 1,800-kilometre-wide storm killed at least 18 people in flash floods and landslides in several northern provinces.

More than a million people remained displaced Tuesday, including about 803,000 sheltering in 11,000 evacuation centres across the northern Luzon region, Office of Civil Defense deputy director Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said.

Among the dead were three children whose houses were buried in two separate landslides in the mountainous province of Nueva Vizcaya that injured four others, while a landslide in nearby Kalinga province killed two villagers and two others were missing, officials said.

“It’s not mass casualty in one place,” Alejandro said Tuesday, noting several people were killed in separate landslides.

The Philippines and Taiwan are battered by numerous typhoons and storms each year.