Typhoon sinks cargo ship and kills three off Taiwan

Taipei/Beijing — Typhoon Gaemi swept through northern Taiwan on Thursday, killing three people, triggering flooding and sinking a freighter before barrelling west across the Taiwan Strait towards China where it is expected to dump more torrential rain.

Gaemi made landfall on the northeastern coast of Taiwan in Yilan county. It is the strongest typhoon to hit the island in eight years and was packing gusts of up to 227km/h before weakening, according to the Central Weather Administration.

Gaemi would be the biggest typhoon to hit China’s eastern seaboard this year, with its spiralling cloud-bands spanning most of the western Pacific Ocean and fuelling severe weather from the Philippines to Japan’s Okinawa islands.

In Taiwan, the storm cut power to about half-a-million households, though most were now back online, utility TaiPower said.

The typhoon is expected to bring more rain across Taiwan in its wake, with offices and schools as well as the financial markets closed for a second day on Thursday. Domestic flights and 195 international flights were cancelled for the day.

Three people died and 380 had been injured due to the typhoon, the government said. Taiwanese television stations showed pictures of flooded streets in cities and counties across the island.

Li Li-chuan, 55, saw the roof of her restaurant blow off in the northeastern Taiwanese city of Suao. “I was frightened,” she said . “It was the strongest in years. I was worried that the roof would hit other people.”

Taiwan’s fire department said a Tanzania-flagged freighter with nine Myanmar nationals on board had sunk off the coast of the southern port city of Kaohsiung and there had been no response from the crew. Search efforts were continuing, it said.

Chinese weather forecasters said Gaemi would pass through Fujian province and head inland, gradually moving northward with less intensity. They expected heavy rain in many areas as it tracks north.

Government officials prepared for heavy rain and flooding, raising advisories and warnings in the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.

In Fujian, government officials relocated about 150,000 people, mainly from coastal fishing communities, state media reported. As gale force winds picked up, officials in Zhoushan in Zhejiang suspended passenger waterway routes.

Most flights were cancelled at airports in Fuzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian, and Wenzhou in Zhejiang, according to the VariFlight app.

Reuters