By Ann Wang
SUAO, Taiwan (Reuters) -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 harbour 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 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, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
(Reporting by Ann Wang in Suao, and Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Additional reporting by Mikhail Flores in Manila; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
