TAIPEI, Taiwan: Taiwan evacuated more than 3,000 people from vulnerable areas and closed schools and offices on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of tropical storm Fung-wong, which killed at least 18 people and displaced more than 1.4 million in the Philippines after making landfall there Sunday.
Fung-wong was classified as a typhoon but is losing intensity while approaching Taiwan and is expected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon or evening near the southwestern port city of Kaohsiung.
On Tuesday morning, the storm had maximum sustained winds of up to 108 kph (67 mph) and gusts of 137 kph (85 mph) and is expected to sweep across the island and exit from its northeastern side Wednesday evening or early Thursday, Taiwan’s weather agency said.
More than 3,300 people from four counties and cities have been evacuated near the eastern township of Guangfu, where flooding from a typhoon in September caused a barrier lake to overflow, killing 18 people.
Schools and offices were closed on Tuesday in Hualien and Yilan counties, while weather authorities issued a land warning covering south and southwestern areas including Kaohsiung, Pingtung County, Tainan and Taitung.
China activated an emergency typhoon response for its southeastern Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Hainan provinces.
Fung-wong slammed into the northeastern Philippine coast from the Pacific on Sunday as a super typhoon with maximum sustained winds of 185 kph (115 mph) and gusts of up to 230 kph (143 mph). The 1,800-kilometer (1,100-mile)-wide storm killed at least 18 people in flash floods and landslides in several northern provinces.
More than a million people remained displaced Tuesday, including about 803,000 sheltering in 11,000 evacuation centers across the northern Luzon region, Office of Civil Defense deputy director Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said.
Among the dead were three children whose houses were buried in two separate landslides in the mountainous province of Nueva Vizcaya that injured four others, while a landslide in nearby Kalinga province killed two villagers and two others were missing, officials said.
“It’s not mass casualty in one place,” Alejandro said Tuesday, noting several people were killed in separate landslides.
The Philippines and Taiwan are battered by numerous typhoons and storms each year.
Taiwan evacuates thousands ahead of tropical storm Fung-wong after deaths in the Philippines
https://arab.news/pzbj9
Taiwan evacuates thousands ahead of tropical storm Fung-wong after deaths in the Philippines
- On Tuesday morning, the storm had maximum sustained winds of up to 108 kph
- More than 3,300 people from four counties and cities have been evacuated near the eastern township of Guangfu
Greek coast guard search for 15 after migrant boat found adrift
- The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were on Monday searching for 15 people who fell into the water from a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of Crete with 17 bodies on board.
The 17 fatalities, all of them men, were discovered on Saturday on the craft, which was taking on water and partially deflated, some 26 nautical miles (48 kilometers) southwest of the island.
Post-mortem examinations were being carried out to determine how they died but Greek public television channel ERT suggested they may have suffered from hypothermia or dehydration.
A Greek coast guard spokeswoman told AFP that two survivors reported that “15 people fell in the water” after the motor cut out on Thursday, then the vessel drifted for two days.
At the time, Crete and much of the rest of Greece was battered by heavy rain and storms.
The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water.
The vessel had 34 people on board and had left the Libyan port of Tobruk on Wednesday, the Greek port authorities said. Most of those who died came from Sudan and Egypt.
It was initially spotted by a Turkish-flagged cargo ship on Saturday, triggering a search that included ships and aircraft from the Greek coast guard and the European Union border agency Frontex.
Migrants have been trying to reach Crete from Libya for the last year, as a way of entering the European Union. But the Mediterranean crossing is perilous.
In Brussels, the EU’s 27 members on Monday backed a significant tightening of immigration policy, including the concept of returning failed asylum-seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
Greece’s conservative government has also toughened its migration policy, suspending asylum claims for three months, particularly those coming to Crete from Libya.
