TAIPEI: Taiwan evacuated more than 2,000 tourists yesterday as the island braced for super-typhoon Soulik while Japan’s Okinawa warned residents giant waves of up to 12 metres (40 feet) could hit the archipelago.
The typhoon, packing gusts of up to 227km per hour, was 790 kilometres east southeast of the island’s Yilan city in the northeast at 0900 GMT, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said.
“That means trees could be uprooted and roofs ripped off” if the typhoon struck the island without losing strength, a weather forecaster said. Soulik is moving west-northwest towards Taiwan at about 22km per hour and could narrowly miss the island or make landfall on its northern tip sometime between late today and Saturday morning, the bureau said.
“The public must heighten their vigilance as the typhoon will certainly bring strong winds and heavy rains,” the weather forecaster said. The Taipei-based TVBS news channel said the typhoon was moving along the same route as 1996 super-typhoon Herb which left 51 dead and 22 missing.
Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau is expected to issue a “land warning” at 1230 GMT, a warning signal issued when the storm is thought to be 18 hours away from Taiwan.
The Central Emergency Operation Centre also asked the public to stay away from the mountainous areas in central Taiwan, the epicentres of two recent earthquakes measuring more than 6.0 magnitude.
“The soil in the areas has been loosened after the two strong quakes and are prone to landslides,” it said in a statement.
The Okinawa weather bureau in Japan warned waves of up to 12 metres and gusts of winds up to 234km per hour may hit parts of the far southwest of the archipelago.
The westernmost inhabited island of Okinawa lies around 100 km from the east coast of Taiwan.
AFP
