Nearly 300,000 households in Taiwan had no power on Monday, hours after Typhoon Danas slammed into the island’s southwestern coast, killing at least two people and leaving more than 500 others injured.
Typhoon Danas made landfall in Chiayi County late Sunday night with the force of a Category 1 hurricane, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration. It moved offshore early Monday after scraping along Taiwan’s west coast, and was approaching mainland China in the afternoon as a tropical storm.
As of Monday afternoon, nearly 300,000 households across the island had no electricity, according to Taipower, the state electricity company. Schools and businesses in dozens of cities and counties were closed.
Summer typhoons are common in Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, but they usually make landfall on the island’s mountainous and lightly populated east coast. The Central Weather Administration said that Danas was the first typhoon to make landfall in Chiayi County since the agency began keeping detailed typhoon records in 1958.
President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan said on social media that the typhoon had followed a rare track. “The whole of Taiwan will be affected by the wind and rain one after another,” he said as the storm approached on Sunday.
Some Chiayi residents said the typhoon was the strongest they had experienced.
“I have never seen such strong winds and rains at home,” said Lu Kuan-hao, 34. “The wind and rain howled loudly in the middle of the night.”
As the typhoon raged through the night, Mr. Lu said, he and his friends had exchanged text messages to share their worries. Monday morning, they surveyed the damage. “Many trees had fallen over on streets, and the ground was in ruins,” he said. “The recovery work may take several months or even a year.”
The two confirmed deaths occurred in Tainan, the island’s oldest city and former capital. A 60-year-old man died after the typhoon caused a power outage that shut off his breathing apparatus, and a 69-year-old man was crushed by a fallen tree, according to the National Fire Agency. The government did not give details on the conditions of people who were injured.
The storm also destroyed the massive gate of the Nankunshen Daitian Temple, a well-known temple in Tainan.
The city, an agricultural hub, reported more than $7.2 million in agricultural losses on Monday, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. According to government data, over 1,500 instances of typhoon-related damage of varying severity were reported throughout the city.
No significant damage was reported at the Tainan Science Park and Hsinchu Science Park, which are homes to leading tech companies including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip manufacturer.
Amy Chang Chien is a reporter and researcher for The Times in Taipei, covering Taiwan and China.
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