Typhoon Ragasa floods Taiwan’s Hualien, leaving two dead, 30 missing
A man walks along a road amid heavy rain due to weather patterns from Super Typhoon Ragasa in Lal-lo town, Cagayan province, Philippines. Photo: AFP
Taiwan's fire department said on Tuesday that 30 people were missing and two people had died in the eastern county of Hualien, where a barrier lake in the mountains burst its banks in a typhoon.
Taiwan has since Monday been lashed by the outer rim of Super Typhoon Ragasa, which is now on its way to the southern Chinese coast.
The barrier lake, formed by landslides triggered by earlier heavy rain in the sparsely populated east of Taiwan, burst its banks mid-afternoon on Tuesday, sending a wall of water into Guangfu township.
The fire department put the number of missing in Hualien following the flood at 30, with two deaths reported in Guangfu.
Read More: Hong Kong closes ahead of Super Typhoon Ragasa
Ragasa lashed the northern Philippines and Taiwan on Monday with heavy rains and strong winds, forcing thousands to evacuate.
"In some places, water temporarily rose as high as the second floor of a house and was about (as high as) one floor in the town centre, where the water has been receding," Lee Lung-sheng, deputy chief of Hualien County Fire Department, told AFP.
"About 263 people were trapped and moved up to higher ground when the river suddenly rose. They are not in immediate danger, but they are very worried about the high water," he said.
He added that two people were missing, and a search was underway to recover them.
The stranded residents were asked to stay put and wait for the water to recede, he added.
Footage released by Taiwan's National Fire Agency showed flooded streets and half-submerged cars as trees were uprooted in the area.
Also Read: China evacuates 400,000
Across Taiwan, more than 7,600 people were evacuated due to Typhoon Ragasa.
Around 3,100 people were evacuated beforehand and moved in with relatives in the area near the creek in Hualien, according to the fire agency.
Taiwan experiences frequent tropical storms from July to October.
Typhoon Danas, which hit the island in early July, killed two people and injured hundreds as the storm dumped more than 20 inches of rain across the south over a weekend.