Heavy rain brought by Tropical Storm Mitag (米塔) caused minor damage to the nation yesterday.
Landslides disrupted traffic on the Suhua Highway (Provincial Highway No. 9). By 6pm, only one lane was open to two-way traffic.
The highway has now been closed to traffic nine times this year because of landslides caused by typhoons.
PHOTO: EPA
Landslides were also reported on provincial highways No. 7 in Ilan County and No. 8 in Hualien County yesterday afternoon.
Road maintenance officials had managed to resume normal operations of highway No. 8 (Toroko Gorge) by early yesterday evening.
Three airports on the nation's surrounding islands -- Chimei (七美) in Penghu County, Lanyu (蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) -- were closed because of the inclement weather brought by Mitag.
The airport in Taitung was also closed yesterday morning, but reopened at 1:30pm. Hengchun (
By 6pm, 43 domestic flights had been either delayed or canceled.
Meanwhile, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday that Mitag has been downgraded from a typhoon to a severe tropical storm, but the bureau continued to caution residents in the east and south of the nation against heavy rainfall and strong winds.
As of 5:30pm, the center of Mitag was located approximately 280km south of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻). The radius of the storm had reduced from 200km to 180km and it was moving north-northeast at 12kph. Maximum wind speeds near the center were measured at 101kph, with gusts of up to 126kph.
Accumulated rain topped 623mm in Nioudou (
The bureau said yesterday that heavy rain would continue today and is expected to ease by tomorrow, adding that the temperature tomorrow could potentially drop to a low of 14oC owing to a mass of cold air following the storm.
For today, the bureau issued further torrential rain alerts for residents in Keelung, Taipei and Taoyuan and those living between Ilan and the Hengchun Peninsula. Residents of the mountainous areas of Hualien and Taitung counties were told to be prepared for torrential rain.
Because of the interaction between seasonal winds from the northeast and the circumfluence of Mitag, winds in coastal areas and the Hengchun Peninsula could reach up to 117kph, the bureau warned.
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan. The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan. Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry