TAITUNG, Taiwan: Taiwan woke up on Monday (Sep 4) to toppled trees, floods, and persistent rainfall after Typhoon Haikui made landfall on the island and swept overnight across its central mountain ranges.
It had initially appeared to leave the island, but made a second landfall early Monday morning in southwestern Kaohsiung, before it was downgraded to a severe tropical storm.
There were no reports of deaths, but destruction was seen in coastal Taitung, a mountainous county in lesser-populated eastern Taiwan where the storm directly hit the day before.
“I’ve lived here for so long and I have never seen such wind gusts,” said Chen Hai-feng, 55, a village chief in Taitung’s Donghe township, where he was with an early-morning work crew removing trees from a road.
Although Haikui is considered to be less severe than previous storms, Chen said it felt more powerful.
“It came straight through us.”
Source: Channel News Asia
