Taiwan woke up Monday 4 September 2023 Typhoon Haikui to downed trees, flooding and incessant rainfall after Typhoon Haikui hit the island and swept across the central mountains overnight.
At least 44 people were injure and tens of thousands of homes lost power when Typhoon Haikui hit Taiwan, authorities said.
State-run utility Taipower said Typhoon Haikui cut power to more than 160,000 households. However, less than 50,000 households were still waiting for electricity to be restore on Sunday evening.
Several counties and cities in southern, eastern and central Taiwan closed schools and announced holidays for workers on Monday.
Initially the storm appeared to be leaving the island after briefly crashing on Sunday. However, Haikui made landfall a second time Monday morning southwest of Kaohsiung, before being downgrade to a severe tropical storm.
There were no reports of casualties, but damage was seen on the coast of Taitung, a mountainous area in eastern Taiwan that is less populated, where a direct storm made landfall the day before.
“I’ve lived here for a long time and I’ve never seen a gust of wind like this,” said Chen Hai-feng, 55, a village chief in Donghe Township, Taitung, where he and a crew of workers early in the morning cleared a tree from the road.

While Haikui was considere less severe than previous storms, Chen said it was noticeably more violent.

“It came straight at us.” Before Haikui hit on Sunday – the first time a typhoon has hit Taiwan in four years – thousands of people were evacuate across the island, mainly from mountainous areas prone to landslides, while hundreds of flights were cancel and businesses close.
Tens of thousands of households experienced a temporary power outage, although more than half had it back on by nightfall.
A weather forecaster at Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said Haikui initially appeared to be moving through the island and heading out to sea, but landed a second time in the southwestern coastal city of Kaohsiung around 4 a.m. on Monday.
During the night “the center of the typhoon was almost circling” over Kaohsiung, but as it move along the coastline “the structure of the typhoon was damage by the terrain and gradually weeekend”, he said.
Local news outlets report that streets in Kaohsiung were flood, and fallen trees litter the streets.
Haikui is currently approaching neighboring Tainan, which will bring strong winds and rain to the south and northeast, as well as the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen and Penghu which lie in the strait.

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