It is the first time the island has issued alerts for two storms simultaneously in 50 years
TAIPEI – WEATHER – (Reuters) – One person was missing in Taiwan on Monday after the island’s second typhoon in 24 hours battered southern and central regions, taking injuries from both storms to 131, the government said.
Financial markets and businesses opened in Taipei on Monday as the capital returned to normal. But the second-largest city of Kaohsiung, on the southern coast, remained shut with the second storm, Typhoon Haitang, bringing torrential rain.
Typhoon Haitang made landfall in the south and southeast on Sunday afternoon, the government said on its website. It is the first time the island has issued alerts for two storms simultaneously in 50 years, the Central Weather Bureau said.
On Saturday Nesat, a medium-strength typhoon with wind speeds of around 119 km per hour (70 mph), made landfall, but has since moved on to China’s southeastern Fujian province, the bureau and Chinese state news agency Xinhua said.
It had forced the cancellation of more than 40 round-trip flights by EVA Airways Corp, Taiwan’s second-largest carrier, affecting more than 10,000 passengers, the airline said.
Haitang has also brought strong winds and rain to Fujian, but there were no immediate reports of any casualties. The storm will weaken as it heads inland, bringing heavy rain to a wide swathe of central and eastern China, state media said.
(Reporting by Faith Hung; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez)
