Sunday, August 9, 2009

Typhoon Morakot Brings the Floodwaters

Typhoon Morakot headed away from Taiwan and off for mainland China already over a day ago, but somebody forgot to tell the rain to leave with it. Pingdong County  in southern Taiwan has had more rain than any other time on record (over 2500 mm since last Thursday) and a few headlines say Taiwan has experienced its worse flooding in 50 years, especially in the south.

Here in Yunlin County, we’ve had 1776 mm of rain so far with at least two more days of rain expected. The field pictured below a minute from my house was formally a watermelon field… now just a water field! There was flooding on the roads in places locally here earlier today, although when I was out again just now the waters have receded a little.

 waterfield waterfield2

Some friends who run a restaurant in Guanziling in Tainan (spa resort area)  have been without power for 4 days already and say some roads there have been washed away again.

A few moments ago I also called my oyster-farming friend in coastal Chiayi, who along with everyone there experienced such financial loss in the last tropical storm. The floods there in his town of DongShi are bad, and he expects even worse news tomorrow when he goes out on his boat to inspect his oyster farm out off the coast. He thinks his loss will be about as much as the 4 year old second hand Toyota Altis he just bought this past month, but, in the Taiwanese spirit, he is taking this loss well since all his family and friends are safe.

3 comments:

lamtitaioan said...

It looks bad. How does your house look like? btw, where is Guanziling?

Amrita said...

I saw a report on BBC, the situation is very bad it seems.

The watermelon feild is really flooded.

May the lord protect you.

Mark said...

In the mountains near Chiayi city.