Taipei, Aug 4 (EFE).- At least four people died, 77 more were injured, and three remain missing in Taiwan due to the torrential rains that have hit the center and south of the island over the past week, the Central Emergency Operations Command reported Monday.
According to the agency’s latest data, collected by the CNA news agency, the deaths occurred on Wednesday and Thursday, specifically in the southern city of Kaohsiung and the central county of Nantou, as a result of road accidents linked to the storm.
One of the victims was a 57-year-old man who drowned Thursday while trying to cross a flooded street in Nantou, according to a report from the local police department, which found his body submerged under two meters of water.
The other two deaths occurred Wednesday, when a vehicle carrying a family of five plunged into a ravine on Provincial Highway 20, which connects the southern city of Tainan with the eastern municipality of Taitung.
Rescue teams located two bodies of the occupants, while the rest of the passengers remained missing Sunday, said the command, which also reported the disappearance of a motorcycle driver on Provincial Highway 29 in Kaohsiung.
As of Monday morning, more than 5,900 residents had been evacuated across Taiwan and more than 50,000 homes had lost power, following rains that dumped more than 2,600 millimeters of accumulated precipitation in the southern mountains and caused agricultural losses valued at approximately TWD119.2 million (about $4 million.)
The Central Meteorological Administration kept “extremely heavy rain” alerts Monday in the mountainous areas of Kaohsiung and southern Pingtung County, as well as “heavy rain” warnings in Tainan and the outlying archipelagos of Kinmen and Pescadores.
Taiwan is still recovering from the onslaught of Typhoon Danas, which struck the island’s densely populated west coast in early July, leaving two people dead and more than 500 injured. EFE
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