Taiwan : '50 % risk' Tembin may return

Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau warned Saturday tropical storm Tembin could return early next week after triggering the worst downpour in over a century on the island's southernmost tip. Tembin, initially characterised as a "severe" typhoon by the Hong Kong Observatory, swept across southern Taiwan Friday before moving out to sea. "There is roughly a 50 percent risk Tembin could affect Taiwan again on Monday or Tuesday depending on its path," forecaster Lin Bin-yu said. Tembin's future course hinged partly on Bolaven, another typhoon which was not expected to head directly to Taiwan, he said. Tembin unleashed precipitation in southern Pingtung county that was described as the worst in more than a century. While weather bureau data showed Pingtung as a whole had received 724 millimetres (29 inches) of rain since Wednesday, the township of Hengchun saw rainfall of over 600 millimetres on Friday alone. "In Hengchun, it's a record amount of rainfall since 1896," said Hsieh Ming-gung, a forecaster with the weather bureau. Hengchun has a population of about 30,000 and forms Taiwan's southernmost tip. Television footage showed scenes from villages in Pingtung county, where pedestrians were walking through ankle-deep water, while workers removed debris left by floods. "Flooding in the Hengchun area Friday was very serious, and worse even than Morakot," said Chen Cheng-chia, an official with the Pingtung Fire Agency, referring to a typhoon that struck Taiwan in August 2009, killing about 600. In other parts of Pingtung, however, Morakot had caused significantly more damage than Tembin, he added. The latest typhoon left five people injured in its path, including two firefighters, according to Taiwan's Central Emergency Operation Centre. The weather bureau lifted its warning earlier Saturday as Tembin was downgraded to a tropical storm that was slowly moving away but warned of more rains in the south. As of 0330 GMT, Tembin was 220 kilometres (140 miles) north-northeast of Dongsha island in the South China Sea. With a radius of 150 kilometres and packing winds gusting at up to 101 kilometres an hour, it was moving west-southwest at seven kilometres per hour.