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14-11-2025
SUAO: Taiwan evacuated more than 8,300 people ahead of Wednesday’s arrival of a much weakened Typhoon Fung-wong that brought record downpours to the mountainous east coast and unleashed floods that rose neck-high in places.
Businesses and schools were shut in most southern areas of the island, with 51 people injured.
Television images showed severe floods in parts of the largely rural eastern county of Yilan, with waters neck-deep as soldiers mounted rescue efforts for those stranded.
More than 1,000 homes were flooded in the harbor town of Suao which received 648 mm (25 inches) of rain on Tuesday, a record for the month, weather officials said.
“The water came in so quickly,” said fisherman Hung Chun-yi, who spent the night clearing mud from his home, after its first floor was engulfed in waters 60-cm (2-ft) deep.
“It rained so much, and so fast, the drainage couldn’t take it.”
Other residents also worked to clear mud from flooded homes in Suao, though the torrential rains have stopped.
The fire department said about 8,300 people were moved from their homes to safer areas, mostly in Yilan and nearby Hualien, where a monsoon from the north swelled the rainfall with the unseasonably late typhoon “summer is getting longer and typhoons are arriving later and later,” said Huang En-hong, a forecaster at Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration.
Climate change could cause similar more extreme weather events, but more study was needed to establish a trend, he added.
Fung-wong is forecast to graze the far southern tip of Taiwan later on Wednesday before heading into the Pacific Ocean. It lost considerable strength, opens new tab after swirling through the Philippines to kill 27 people.
A typhoon in September caused floods that killed 18 people in Hualien.
This week’s typhoon will not directly affect the northern city of Hsinchu, home to TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
The brunt of the typhoon affected the north of the archipelago, making landfall on the coast of Aurora province on the main island of Luzon as a super typhoon, with sustained winds of up to 185 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 230 kph.
Entire villages were submerged and dozens of towns remained without electricity on Monday. On Monday, schools and government offices across the main island of Luzon were closed, with the closure due to resume on Tuesday. This includes the capital, Manila.
The massive storm, the biggest to threaten the Philippines so far this year was 1,800 kilometers (some 1,100 miles) wide.
It blew in as the central Philippines was still dealing with the massive damage caused by Typhoon Kalmaegi, which killed at least 224 people.
Authorities warned that while the typhoon has passed, heavy rain still posed a danger in certain areas.
Taiwanese weather forecaster Stan Chang told media that more than 350 millimeters (14 inches) of rain is expected in a 24-hour period across the region.
Government officials said that some 5,000 people will be evacuated from three townships in the eastern county of Hualien.
More than 1.4 million people were displaced into emergency shelters or relative’ homes before Fung-wong made landfall, with more than 300,000 people still staying at evacuation centers on Monday. (Int’l News Desk)
