盧碧颱風專題報導

Tropical storm Lupit brings flooding to Ilan 十月 24, 2009

Tropical storm Lupit caused flooding across Ilan County yesterday despite being downgraded from a typhoon.

The Central Weather Bureau confirmed the storm would move away from the Philippines and Taiwan in a northeasterly direction toward Japan, though it warned torrential rain was still expected to hit the south, east coast and north of the island.

The bureau still did not issue sea or land warnings for Taiwan yesterday, despite expectations it would have done so by then. Considering the storm’s new route, land warnings were increasingly unlikely, forecasters said.

Despite the storm’s slow progress, rain caused flooding in Ilan City, causing traffic problems. In the Ilan County township of Toucheng, 250 teachers and students at a school were forced to move to other classrooms as the first floor was flooded.

Taipei’s Shuanghsi area recorded the most rainfall, 400mm for the period from Thursday morning to yesterday afternoon or 274mm for the first 14 hours of Friday. During the same period, Toucheng in Ilan County recorded 267mm and Pinglin in Taipei County 219mm.

More than 300 people left Green Island for Taitung yesterday morning ahead of a suspension of ferry services between the two from 10:00 a.m. until the end of the weekend, reports said. More remote Orchid Island ordered all schools and offices closed yesterday.

Lupit was originally thought to move across the Northern Philippines in the direction of China, but Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau was the first to suggest it could stay above the Philippines and then make a right turn to move northeast toward Japan..

Yesterday afternoon, the eye of the storm was located more than 400km southeast of Taiwan’s southern tip and moving north-northeast at a slow speed of 6km to 9km an hour, forecasters said.

Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Page 3
2009-10-24 12:00 AM