International

S Korea on alert as typhoon nears

August 27, 2012 | 12:00 AM

A Chinese fishing boat fights high waves after taking shelter in a port on the southern island of Jeju yesterday ahead of the arrival of a major typhoon. Officials were put on high alert with classes cancelled in Seoul and other cities as Typhoon Bolaven churned yesterday towards the peninsula

South Korea was bracing for major typhoon Bolaven yesterday, with a main port and ferry routes closed, classes cancelled, a military exercise suspended and officials put on high alert. Typhoon Bolaven - one of the region’s most powerful storms in decades - was churning towards the peninsula after lashing Japan’s Okinawa island with heavy rain and wind, knocking out power, and injuring at least five people. One man died on Japan’s nearby island of Amami, Kagoshima prefecture, after being swept away by a swollen river, the Kyodo news agency reported. The typhoon, with winds of up to 173kph, was expected to hit South Korea from today to tomorrow before reaching North Korea, Seoul’s weather service said. A joint military exercise with the US has been suspended until weather conditions improve, the Combined Forces Command said in a statement, according to the Yonhap news agency. South Korea’s defence ministry earlier said personnel in the path of the typhoon had been ordered to take shelter and move planes and ships to safer areas. In the southern port city of Busan authorities yesterday banned all ships from entering the docks until the storm passes. Large ships were advised to move elsewhere out of the storm’s path. The transportation ministry said 68 of the country’s 87 sea ferry routes had been cancelled. Airport authorities were checking runways and other facilities. A state disaster relief board raised its alert to the highest level, meaning more officials will be on watch. Some 140 flights yesterday and today, mostly to or from the southern resort island of Jeju, were cancelled. President Lee Myung-Bak called for “thorough preparation” to minimise damage and prevent casualties. In Seoul and the western port city of Incheon, all schools were ordered closed Tuesday. The typhoon is expected to dump as much as 500mm of rain in some parts of the nation till tomorrow and bring strong winds and high tides, the weather service said. Storm alerts had already been issued in most parts of the country by yesterday night. AFP

Taiwan braces itself for return of Typhoon TembinTaiwan was bracing yesterday for the likely return early today of Typhoon Tembin, forecasting that it may hit the same area where only days ago it unleashed the worst rains in more than a century. It is rare in Taiwan for a typhoon to return and make a second landfall, happening roughly once in a decade, and local residents were anxious as they prepared for the eventuality yesterday night. “We’re already hit by the worst flooding in a century,” said Tsai Chun-fang, an official from the township of Hengchun, which saw more than 600mm of rainfall within a 24-hour span late last week. “We’re really worried that the typhoon might return, because we haven’t fully recovered yet.” Hundreds of soldiers were dispatched over the weekend to Hengchun, which forms the southernmost tip of the island, to help people clean up their homes after Tembin forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate their homes islandwide. With a radius of 180 kilometres, the typhoon was packing gusts of up to 119kph and moving northeast at up to 20kph as of yesterday afternoon local time. “Tembin has sped up slightly over the past few hours and is expected to make landfall early tomorrow if it moves on along the current path,” an official with the weather bureau told reporters yesterday. The weather bureau said Taiwan had been hit by the same typhoon twice only four times since 1977. The last typhoon to do so was Typhoon Nali in 2001.

August 27, 2012 | 12:00 AM