Power partially restored on Taiwan as typhoon kills 2

Typhoon Butchoy has crossed Southern Taiwan and continues to move farther away from the country.

The defense ministry had stepped up evacuations since 2009, when Typhoon Morakot killed more than 600 people, many of them buried in huge landslides in the south. Accuweather meanwhile calls the expected rain and potential flooding “life threatening” – up to 30 inches of rain could fall in some regions of the island nation. There were no reports of damage at semiconductor plants in the south.

According to the CEOC, damage was reported in the southern city of Tainan, the northeastern county of Yilan, and the eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung, as well as Lienchiang County of Fujian Province. Power outages have left 13-hundred homes in the dark. With wind speeds of 234 kilometres per hour spanning a width of 200 kilometres, Napartak is Taiwan’s largest super-typhoon in six years.

Reports late Thursday from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii, operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, showed Nepartak with maximum sustained winds up to 161 miles per hour and gusts up to 196 miles per hour. Troops were deployed across the country and emergence services ramped up ahead of the super typhoon.

Taiwan closed financial markets and offices on Friday (July 8) as Typhoon Nepartak approached the island.

In 2009, Typhoon Morakot devastated the island, killing more than 600 people, majority buried in huge landslides in the south. China’s meteorological administration has said the typhoon was likely to make landfall in eastern China on Saturday morning.

On Thursday, Cathay Pacific announced the airline would be suspending all flight operations in Taiwan from 6 p.m. Thursday, local time, until Friday afternoon – all flights between those times were canceled.

Although the typhoon was losing power, disaster response officials remain concerned that the heavy rains could trigger floods and landslides in the rugged terrain.

When Nepartak formed Sunday, it ended an all-time record storm drought in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

The typhoon has been labelled a category 5 storm on a scale of 1 to 5 by Tropical Storm Risk making it a super typhoon but it should weaken to a topical storm by the time it reaches China.