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
Kabul shakes as 5.8-magnitude earthquake hits eastern Afghanistan
- The 5.8-magnitude quake struck a mountainous area around 130 kilometers northeast of Kabul
- Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range
KABUL: A strong earthquake rocked eastern Afghanistan including the capital Kabul on Friday, AFP journalists and residents said.
The 5.8-magnitude quake struck a mountainous area around 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Kabul, the United States Geological Survey said.
The epicenter was near several remote villages and struck at 5:39 p.m. (1309 GMT), just as people in the Muslim-majority country were sitting down to break their Ramadan fast.
“We were waiting to do our iftars, a heavy earthquake shook us. It was very strong, it went on for almost 30 seconds,” said Zilgay Talabi, a resident of Khenj district near of the epicenter.
“Everyone was horrified and scared,” Talabi told AFP, saying he feared “landslides and avalanches” may follow.
Power was briefly cut in parts of the capital, while east of Kabul an AFP journalist in Nangarhar province also felt it.
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range, near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet.
Haqmal Saad, spokesman for the Panjshir province police, described the quake as “very strong” and said the force was “gathering information on the ground.”
Mohibullah Jahid, head of Panjshir Natural Disaster Management agency, told AFP he was in touch with several officials in the area.
The district governor had told him there were reports of “minor damage, such as cracks in the walls, but we have not received anything serious, such as the collapse of houses or anything similar,” Jahid said.
Residents in Bamiyan and Wardak provinces, west of Kabul, told AFP they also felt the earthquake.
In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, rescue service official Bilal Ahmad Faizi said the quake was felt in border areas.
In August last year, a shallow 6.0-magnitude quake in the country’s east wiped out mountainside villages and killed more than 2,200 people.
Weeks later, a 6.3-magnitude quake in northern Afghanistan killed at least 27 people.
Large tremors in western Herat, near the Iranian border, in 2023, and in Nangarhar province in 2022, killed hundreds and destroyed thousands of homes.
Many homes in the predominantly rural country, which has been devastated by decades of war, are shoddily built.
Poor communication networks and infrastructure in mountainous Afghanistan have hampered disaster responses in the past, preventing authorities from reaching far-flung villages for hours or even days before they could assess the extent of the damage.
