Streets and homes in Taiwan's Yilan County were left inundated with mud and rubble on Wednesday (12 November) after floodwaters swept through residential areas, forcing residents to wade through puddles of water and clear debris from damaged homes.
Taiwan evacuated more than 8,300 people ahead of Wednesday's arrival of a much weakened Typhoon Fung-wong that still brought record downpours to the mountainous east coast and unleashed floods that rose neck-high in places.
Television images showed severe floods in parts of the largely rural eastern county of Yilan, with waters neck-deep as soldiers mounted rescue efforts for those stranded.
Businesses and schools were shut in most southern areas of the island, with 51 people injured.
More than 1,000 homes were flooded in the harbour town of Suao which received 648 mm (25 inches) of rain on Tuesday (11 November), a record for the month, weather officials said.
The fire department said about 8,300 people were moved from their homes to safer areas, mostly in Yilan and nearby Hualien, where a monsoon from the north swelled the rainfall with the unseasonably late typhoon.
"Summer is getting longer and typhoons are arriving later and later," said Huang En-hong, a forecaster at Taiwan's Central Weather Administration.
Climate change could cause similar more extreme weather events, but more study was needed to establish a trend, he added.
Fung-wong is forecast to graze the far southern tip of Taiwan later on Wednesday before heading into the Pacific Ocean. It lost considerable strength after swirling through the Philippines when it killed 27 people.
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