Taiwan says '50 percent risk' Tembin may return

Taiwan forecasters warned on Saturday that tropical storm Tembin could return early next week after triggering the worst downpour in over a century on the island's southernmost tip.

Tembin, initially graded a "severe" typhoon by the Hong Kong Observatory, swept across southern Taiwan on Friday before moving out to sea, where it was packing winds gusting up to 101 kilometres (63 miles) an hour.

"There is roughly a 50 percent risk Tembin could affect Taiwan again on Monday or Tuesday depending on its path," said forecaster Lin Bin-yu, from Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau.

Tembin's course hinged partly on Typhoon Bolaven, which was not expected to head directly to Taiwan, he said. Bolaven was moving towards southern Japan and predicted to hit Okinawa on Sunday afternoon.

Tembin unleashed torrential rain in the southern Pingtung county that was described as the worst in more than a century.

Weather bureau data showed Pingtung as a whole received 724 millimetres (29 inches) of rain since Wednesday, while the township of Hengchun saw rainfall of over 600 millimetres on Friday alone.

"In Hengchun, it's a record amount of rainfall since 1896," said Hsieh Ming-gung, a forecaster with the weather bureau. Hengchun has a population of about 30,000 and forms Taiwan's southernmost tip.

Television footage showed scenes from villages in Pingtung county, where pedestrians were walking through ankle-deep water, while workers removed debris left by flooding.

Young military conscripts walked from house to house to help residents put their homes back in order after they had been engulfed by mudflows, TV showed.

"Flooding in the Hengchun area Friday was very serious, and worse even than Morakot," said Chen Cheng-chia, an official with the Pingtung Fire Agency, referring to a typhoon that struck Taiwan in August 2009, killing about 600.

The latest typhoon left five people injured in its path, including two firefighters, according to Taiwan's Central Emergency Operation Centre.

The Taiwanese government, which was criticised heavily for its perceived passivity when Morakot struck, put 50,000 soldiers on standby in order to ensure speedy rescue in case of a major disaster.

"Civilian and military authorities should coordinate their post-typhoon efforts to ensure that the local people can resume their normal lives as soon as possible," Premier Sean Chen said according to a statement.

The weather bureau lifted its warning earlier Saturday as Tembin was downgraded to a tropical storm that was slowly moving away but warned of more rains in the south.

As of 0630 GMT, the latest available update, Tembin was 190 kilometres north-northeast of Dongsha island, in the South China Sea. It was moving west-southwest at seven kilometres per hour.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/taiwan-says-50-percent-risk-tembin-may-return-042330722.html

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