Typhoon Sepat slams Taiwan, injures five

TAIPEI, Aug 18 (Reuters) Typhoon Sepat lashed Taiwan with strong winds and torrential rain today, cutting power supplies to nearly 95,000 homes, injuring five people and forcing more than a thousand others to evacuate.

The typhoon, which had already caused flooding in the Philippines, prompted airlines to cancel flights and in southern China, the next place in its path, the official Xinhua news agency said tens of thousands of people were being evacuated.

Two vehicles were crushed by a falling billboard in Taipei, scaffolding collapsed at a building in the outskirts of the city and, in the mountains, workers battled to clear uprooted trees that were blocking roads.

''We were so busy yesterday because customers were grabbing instant noodles and other things from our shelves to stock up food for the typhoon today,'' Alice Wu, a shopkeeper at a convenience store in Taipei aged in her 20s, told Reuters.

''Things are quieter today because everybody is staying indoors. Almost all the shops around here are closed, except for us.'' In Taitung, in the southeast of the island, preparations for the onslaught had been under way for days as the storm approached from the sea, swiping the Philippines on the way.

Nearly 95,000 homes suffered from power outages, according to Taiwan's disaster centre.

''Initially, there were more than 240,000 homes with electricity cuts, but the repairs are already done for over 140,000 households,'' said an official from the disaster centre.

''Some of the unrepaired ones are located in the hardest hit areas, including Hualien, Taitung and Nantou counties.'' HEADING FOR CHINA Five people were injured in Taipei city in the north and Kaohsiung county in the south, while another 1,785 people had to evacuate from their homes in Taiwan, according to the National Fire Agency, Taiwan's disaster centre.

Officials at the centre said one person had died and another was injured while driving in bad weather yesterday, but the case was considered a road accident and not a storm-related casualty.

The eye of the storm had already passed over Taiwan's main island.

At 12:30 IST, the centre of the typhoon was around 50 km north-northeasterly of the offshore Penghu islands located in Taiwan's west, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said.

It packed sustained winds of 126 km per hour and gusts up to 162 km per hour, the bureau said.

Some flights from Taipei and Kaohsiung, Taiwan's two biggest cities, were either postponed or cancelled. Flights affected were bound for Hong Kong, Macau and cities in Asia.

Sepat -- a Malay name for a freshwater fish -- was heading towards China, where authorities in the southern province of Guangdong have warned that it could have a ''major effect'' and have urged people to prepare, Chinese newspapers said.

In China's coastal province of Fujian, officials were told to cancel their holidays to make emergency preparations for the storm, with flights from Xiamen, Jinjiang and Fuzhou cities cancelled since today morning, media reports said.

Chinese authorities ordered boats and vessels in these coastal provinces of Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang to return before the storm hits, according to Xinhua.

In the Philippines, where Sepat exacerbated monsoon rains, more than 380,000 people were affected by flooding, with more than 1,800 -- mainly in the northern province of Pampanga -- evacuated.

The typhoon caused some families to be stranded in five feet of flood water in the south of Manila, minor landslides in northern Philippines, but no reports of casualties.

''We are praying hard for the rains to stop so our lives can go back to normal,'' said Ricardo Quito, 54, who had been camping with his family in a public market.

''What we need now are medicines, foods and clothing. Our children are getting sick because of the unsanitary environment here.'' REUTERS RAR BST1344