TAIPEI ASSESSES IMPACT OF TYPHOON KALMAEGI

Life returned to the streets of Taipei the morning after the arrival of typhoon Kalmaegi, with damage from the storm less than had appeared likely just hours earlier, writes Scott Vincent, Taipei. The mountainous spine that runs along the eastern coast of Taiwan helped soften the blow of Kalmaegi as the storm approached the island’s capital city, minimising the wind damage experienced in Taiwan’s major business and industrial area. But residents of Taipei awoke to treacherous rain on Friday morning as Kalmaegi continued to dump large amounts of water on the island. Southern Taiwan was also subjected to significant rainfall in the run-up to the storms arrival. The mountains along the east coast are thought to have sapped a considerable amount of Kalmaegi’s strength and led to considerable confusion as to how powerful the storm was on arrival at land. Initial radar images indicated that the storm was of strong category two or possibly even weak category three strength, although it is thought that the winds that affected Taipei were considerably weaker than this. Meteorological agencies in the region had produced conflicting reports of Kalmaegi’s intensity as Insurance Day went to press, with reports ranging from tropical storm status to category two strength.