TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s coast guard tried on Friday to rescue dozens of sailors stranded off the southern coast after Typhoon Gaemi sank a freighter and grounded eight others in the Taiwan Strait.
The powerful typhoon swept through Taiwan on Thursday with gusts of up to 227 kph (141 mph) before barrelling west across the Taiwan Strait towards China where it is expected to dump more torrential rain.
One crew member was found dead, while four were rescued and four others were missing after a Tanzania-flagged cargo ship sank off Taiwan’s southern Kaohsiung port, the island’s coast guard officials told Reuters.
Seventy-nine crew members still awaited rescue on eight other freighters that were stranded, the coast guard said. Nine people were rescued earlier today from a Togo-flagged freighter stranded on a beach.
“Braving waves five-meters high…our ships made it to as close as one nautical mile but still failed to get closer,” Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling, whose department runs the coast guard, said in a post on Facebook.
She said the number of freighters stranded by Typhoon Gaemi near Taiwan was unprecedented for a typhoon, adding authorities will continue the rescue efforts.
In Taiwan, the storm dumped over 1,800 mm (70.8 inches) rain in southern mountains since Tuesday and bringing flash flooding to several cities and towns that has largely receded.
The typhoon injured more than 500 people and killed five, most of them hit by fallen objects, and rescuers took more than 300 people out of floodwater in inflatable boats. Businesses and schools in most parts of southern Taiwan were shut for a third day.
(Reporting By Yimou Lee; editing by Miral Fahmy)
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