A super-strength typhoon that brought flooding to parts of the Philippines tore into Taiwan on Friday, forcing the cancellation of flights and sending coastal residents rushing to secure their homes.
Waves swelled, winds picked up and rain battered the north of the island as Typhoon Sepat made landfall, a disaster-relief official and local media said. Two counties ordered class and work stoppages effective on Friday afternoon, TV stations reported.
”There’s already a huge wind, and waves hitting the coast pose a danger,” said Fei Yu, a resident of coastal Taitung county. ”Most people living here are making preparations at home to ride out the storm.”
In the southern city of Kaohsiung, 16 domestic flights and one international flight were cancelled. All flights from Taipei’s domestic airport were due to stop in the evening. The Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, near Taipei, also cancelled southbound flights to avoid the storm.
Sepat will probably smack into the cities of Kaohsiung and Taichung, both with populations of more than one million, early on Saturday and then pummel the Chinese coast, according to Tropical Storm Risk.
The eye of the category-five typhoon was 320km off the coast of Taiwan by 5am GMT, packing sustained winds of 184km/h and gusts up to 227km/h.
China’s south-eastern province of Fujian was bracing for the typhoon to make landfall on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Rains exacerbated by Typhoon Sepat continued to soak Manila and surrounding provinces on Friday after the cyclone brought the Philippine capital to a near standstill two days earlier with major roads near Manila under water up to 1,5m deep in places.
Hurricane threat
Meanwhile, Hurricane Dean strengthened and threatened to become a dangerously powerful storm as it plowed toward the Caribbean and aimed for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula or the Gulf of Mexico beyond, forecasters said on Thursday.
More immediately in the path of the 2007 Atlantic storm season’s first hurricane were the Lesser Antilles, in particular the islands of Dominica and St Lucia and the French territories of Martinique and Guadeloupe, the United States National Hurricane Centre said.
The hurricane’s top sustained winds had reached 160km/h by midnight GMT, making it a category-two storm, the Miami-based hurricane centre said. Computer models showed the hurricane could become an extremely dangerous category-four storm as it passes south of Jamaica early next week.
”Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the hurricane centre said in an echo of warnings that rang out repeatedly in 2004 and 2005, when a series of hurricanes struck the US, the Caribbean and Central America.
Energy markets in particular have been on edge since 2004 and 2005, when hurricanes Ivan, Katrina and Rita toppled oil rigs and flooded refineries on the US Gulf Coast. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for roughly one-third of domestic US oil production and more than 15% of its natural gas. In addition, almost half of US refining capacity is located in Gulf Coast states and can be vulnerable to flooding or wind damage from storms.
If Dean crosses the Yucatan and enters the southern Gulf of Mexico, it could disrupt operations in the Cantarell Complex of Mexican oil fields, which is one of the world’s most productive and supplies two-thirds of Mexico’s crude oil output.
Meanwhile, another weather system, Tropical Storm Erin, weakened into a depression as it washed ashore in Texas north-east of Corpus Christi, spooking oil markets and killing four people. One died when heavy rains flooded Houston and caused a grocery-store roof to collapse, while three were killed in a car crash blamed on wet roads.
Forecasters have predicted the six-month hurricane season that officially began June 1 would be more active than average with up to 16 named storms. An average year historically has 10 to 11 storms, of which six strengthen into hurricanes. — Reuters