UPDATE - At least 2 dead, 69 injured as typhoon hits Taiwan

UPDATES WITH DETAILS OF TYPHOON MOVING TOWARD CHINA’S EAST COAST

By Mahmut Atanur

BEIJING (AA) – At least two people were confirmed dead and 69 others injured as a powerful typhoon swept across Taiwan after making landfall Friday.

The official Central News Agency cited government figures as saying that the fatalities included a soldier who had been fishing in the offshore northern county of Lienchiang and a man who drowned near a popular beach in eastern Hualien.

A total of 69 people were injured in southeastern Taitung country, where two hospitals activated emergency measures to treat those who sustained injuries --mostly to their head and limbs.

Taitung’s fire department urged residents to remain indoors, and recorded more than 300 reports of fallen trees and signboards.

The central weather bureau said strong winds and heavy rainfall from Typhoon Nepartak are forecast to continue affecting Taiwan until night as the storm moves toward southern China.

The storm’s center entered the Taiwan Strait at 2.30 p.m. (0630GMT).

China renewed an orange alert for extreme weather -- the second most severe in its weather warning system -- as the typhoon was expected to strike coastal regions of southeastern Fujian Province and Zhejiang to the north.

State news agency Xinhua reported that the Fujian-Taiwan ferry service was halted Thursday while 341 trains in Fujian canceled services from Friday to Sunday, with the region expected to be drenched up to 300 millimeters of precipitation.

In Taiwan, electric outages continue to affect almost 250,000 households -- more than 90 percent of them in the island’s south -- down from 400,000 households earlier.

The mainland has been bracing for Nepartak following more than a week of torrential rains that left 160 people dead and 28 others still missing.

Around 1.84 million people have been evacuated due to the downpour-triggered flooding and landslides that have caused an estimated 57.8 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) in economic losses and destroyed 560,500 hectares of crops, primarily along the Yangtze River and its tributaries.