台风莫拉克袭击台湾

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What I'm seeing here on the ground is that we are getting a very heavy, heavy rain. Now the drivers are slowing down due to poor visibility, so the traffic has gotten very slow by now. So, um,and people are going to the supermarkets and hypermarkets to stack up on items like candles and flashlights, batteries, and even instant noodles. Now air and land transports are affected. Domestic flights are entirely canceled. International flights may be delayed. And even the train intervals, the trains on the ground, their intervals are becoming longer because the trains have to slow down for safety reasons. And fishing boats, they are staying inside the harbor away from this typhoon. Now the government is also warning surfers do not go surfing,else they would be fined. And due to the threat of mudslides in mountainous areas, tourists are checking out of the hotels that are in mountainous areas.

Are people there concerned, Andrew, or are they pretty much accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing?

Yes, they are concerned, but typhoon season is, people are used to typhoon here in Taiwan. Now in fact, people are, in fact, we are having a drought before the typhoon came and so this may be a godsend in a way because the water levels at our reservoirs here in Taiwan was at 40% before this Typhoon Morakot came. Now after this typhoon came, well, it hasn’t made landfall as of yet, but the reservoirs are full already, so some people are saying this is a godsend to solve the drought problem, but the government which was preparing for drought is now preparing for flood control, ironically, yes.

Do emergency services have everything that they need to be able to cope with this?

Now in terms of emergency, the government preparations, they have already set up a disaster control center, they do that all the time during summertime typhoon seasons. And the government, they are also prepared for typhoon in that they are announcing that as of today, Friday local time here in Taiwan, there will be no classes, and there will be no business, so the stock market is, it’s an off-day. It is a usiness off-day for today. And the government is also warning people to stay indoors,and to stay away from the sea, don’t go into the mountainous areas. So people are prepared, people are stacked up with commodities like candles, flashlights, batteries, and instant noodles, and so is the government.