Stranded cars are seen as mud covers a neighbourhood after water from a burst landslide dam flooded the area in Hualien on Sept 23. - Photo: AFP
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s fire department said on Tuesday (Sept 23) that 30 people were missing and two people had died in the eastern county of Hualien, where a barrier lake in the mountains burst its banks in a typhoon.
Super Typhoon Ragasa pounded the island on Sept 23 with torrential rain, flooding a nearby town and trapping more than 260 people, officials said.
Ragasa lashed northern Philippines and Taiwan on Sept 22 with heavy rain and strong winds, forcing thousands to evacuate.
In Taiwan’s Hualien county, where downpours continued on Sept 23, the decades-old barrier lake, formed by a landslide, on the upper Mataian Creek burst at around 3pm, washing away a bridge and sweeping into a town, a local fire official said.
“In some places, water temporarily rose as high as the second floor of a house and was about (as high as) one floor in the town centre, where the water has been receding,” Mr Lee Lung-sheng, deputy chief of Hualien County Fire Department, told AFP.
“About 263 people were trapped and moved up to higher ground when the river suddenly rose. They are not in immediate danger, but they are very worried about the high water,” he said.
The stranded residents were asked to stay put and wait for the water to recede, he added.
Lee said that a search was under way to help them.
Taiwan logged almost 60cm of rainfall in its east due to the typhoon.
Footage released by Taiwan’s National Fire Agency showed flooded streets and half-submerged cars as trees were uprooted in the area.
Across Taiwan, more than 7,600 people were evacuated due to Typhoon Ragasa.
Around 3,100 people were evacuated beforehand and moved in with relatives in the area near the creek in Hualien, according to the fire agency.
Taiwan experiences frequent tropical storms from July to October.
Typhoon Danas, which hit the island in early July, killed two people and injured hundreds as the storm dumped more than 50cm of rain across the south over a weekend. - AFP, Reuters
