The hunt for six sailors who went missing when a cargo ship went down in rough weather near Taiwan continued on Thursday night as Typhoon Gaemi made its way to southern China.
Authorities on the island of Kaohsiung reported early Thursday that a cargo ship from Tanzania had sunk. The nine crew members who went missing were all from Myanmar. By the time night fell, three of them had been rescued, according to the coast guard of Taiwan. Five further ships were said to be stuck close to Taiwan.
At least four individuals have died, and 531 have been injured in Taiwan.
The tropical cyclone pounded Taiwan on Wednesday night with winds comparable to those of a Category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic. It flooded roadways, grounded airlines’ flights, and shut down schools and businesses.
Officials in the Philippines said that at least fifteen people had died as of Thursday due to the storm.
On Thursday, reports of flooding spread over the southern part of Taiwan. Parked cars were buried by flooding, and several roads were impassable in an upmarket suburb of Kaohsiung. Houses in neighboring Tainan were swamped as inhabitants fought for survival.
At 7:50 p.m. local time, the typhoon made landfall in Putian, Fujian Province, with wind gusts of roughly 73 miles per hour, which is the same as a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, according to China’s Fujian Meteorological Bureau.
By Thursday afternoon, Gaemi began to make her way across the Taiwan Strait. In the late afternoon or evening, a Category 1 storm was predicted to hit the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian.
About 100 miles off the coast of mainland China sits the island of Taiwan, home to some 23 million people.
As the storm approached, officials in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province in China, ordered the closure of non-essential enterprises, closed schools and tourist sites, and prohibited group meetings. Tourists were being asked to leave by other coastal regions in China, and ships were being asked to seek refuge.
As of Thursday afternoon, meteorological stations in Taiwan were reporting rainfall of over four feet due to Typhoon Gaemi. According to the Central Weather Administration, the storm might dump more than seven feet of rainfall on the island.
