China

Typhoon roars into Taiwan

By Wang Qian and Wei Tian (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-20 07:54

Typhoon Fanapi plays havoc with a couple's umbrella as it lashed Taipei on Sunday. Fanapi was the most severe storm to hit the island this year, with wind gusts of up to 162 km per hour. Nicky Loh / Reuters

Mainland braces for onslaught

FUZHOU - The most powerful typhoon to hit China in two years landed in Taiwan on Sunday, injuring at least 45 people, grounding flights and cutting power to tens of thousands of homes.

Typhoon Fanapi, the first major storm to strike the island this year, was forecast to slam into mainland coastal provinces early Monday, the national weather forecaster said.

The China Meteorological Administration said it was the most powerful cyclone, in wind speed, to hit China since Sept 28, 2008, when Typhoon Jangmi landed in Yilan, Taiwan, with peak winds of 215 km per hour (kph).

Fanapi made landfall in Taiwan's eastern city of Hualien at 8:40 am. It packed gusts of 162 kph that caused injuries to pedestrians and people on scooters, broke windows and blew down signs.

Gusts and sustained winds grounded all domestic flights. TV footage showed streets in the southern counties of Kaohsiung and Pingtung inundated with water.

All schools in Taiwan were closed and business halted.

The Taiwan Power Company said in a statement that 170,000

households on the island had lost electricity as of Sunday morning.

Officials evacuated 6,000 residents from remote areas vulnerable to landslides, half of them in the southern part of the island, according to Taiwan's emergency operation center.

Sunday's storm began to abate in the late afternoon, losing strength as it tracked toward the mainland's southeastern coast. Authorities in Fujian and Guangdong are on high alert and have taken a number of measures.

The Fujian provincial water resources department said that by noon Sunday, 186,700 people had been evacuated.

Authorities in the province have recalled 55,000 boats to harbor. An additional 6,000 elderly people as well as women and children living along the coast were also moved to safety.

The National Meteorological Center issued a "red alert" for strong winds and heavy rain in the area where the storm is expected to make landfall on the mainland. The typhoon is forecast to pack winds of 117 km/h and bring heavy rainfalls.

The Ministry of Land and Resources also warned coastal areas to pay attention to potential geological disasters such as landslides and flooding.

"Fanapi is the strongest typhoon to hit Fujian in 2010 and we should prepare for the worst," Sun Chunlan, secretary of the Fujian provincial committee of the Communist Party of China, said.

All tourist attractions in Xiamen were closed at noon on Sunday, according to Xiamen Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Zheng Caixiong, Reuters and AP contributed to this story.

China Daily