Powerful Typhoon Threatens Taiwan

Friday, August 17th 2007, 5:49 am

By: News On 6

BISHA, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwanese stocked up on emergency supplies and boarded up windows against storm damage Friday, after authorities issued a land warning for Typhoon Sepat, by far the most powerful weather system to threaten the island this year.

The Central Weather Bureau, which issued the warning late Thursday, said that at 2:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) Friday, Sepat was located about 290 kilometers (183 miles) southeast of coastal Taidung county in southern Taiwan.

Packing sustained winds of 184 kilometers (114 miles) per hour, Sepat is moving northwest toward Taiwan at a speed of 20 kph (13 mph), the bureau said.

If Sepat stays on its current course, the fringe of the storm could affect the island Friday afternoon and make landfall over southeastern Taiwan Saturday morning, it said.

Sepat is the Malaysian word for a freshwater fish.

In the northeastern port town of Bisha, Chinese fishermen employed on Taiwanese boats crowded into a government-maintained shelter as waves pounded into rocky outcroppings just beyond a nearby breakwater.

One, who identified himself only by his surname Yu, said he came from Fujian province, and had just arrived at the shelter, one of five scattered around the island to provide refuge for mainland fishermen during stormy weather.

"It's very bad out there,'' Yu said, pointing over the breakwater. "Very bad.''

On Friday afternoon authorities in two coastal Taiwanese cities - Hualien and Taidung - closed schools and ordered workers home as the storm approached. Taipei and surrounding suburbs canceled night classes and suspended night shifts for municipal employees.

Elsewhere, emergency personnel began to stack sandbags along flood-prone river banks in the western county of Yunlin.

Taiwanese airlines said they were canceling most domestic flights from Taipei's Songshan airport on Friday afternoon and evening, and international service at Taoyuan airport in a suburb of the capital was spotty, with some flights to regional destinations scrubbed.

South of Taiwan, schools in the Philippines capital of Manila and seven nearby provinces were closed, while some government offices sent their workers home early due to the residual effects of the storm, officials said.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated from flooded villages in northern Pampanga province, where 70 houses were damaged.

Twenty towns in Pampanga were under flood water, affecting 372,000 residents, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.

A boat bound for northern Calayan island was stranded in the coastal town of Aparri with its 70 passengers, the NDCC added.

Several domestic flights and a Philippine Airlines flight to Narita, Japan were canceled because of bad weather, airport officials said.-AP