Lekima may bring even more rainfall

By Jimmy Chuang
STAFF REPORTER

A depression roughly 400km southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan grew into a tropical storm late Saturday night and is moving in a westerly direction -- albeit at a leisurely pace.

Nonetheless, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday Tropical Storm Lekima could mean a great deal of rain for northern and eastern Taiwan.

"Lekima was formed at 8pm Saturday night and became the 19th typhoon this year," said Hsieh Ming-chang (Á©ú©÷), a forecaster at the bureau.

"It's been idling at its current location since Saturday night," Hsieh said.

"But the surrounding air of the [tropical storm] will strengthen seasonal winds from the northeast. Residents in northern and eastern Taiwan should be aware of possible floods."

As of press time, Lekima was ambling at 5kph, heading slowly west.

Strong seasonal winds have been affecting the Taitung area since Saturday afternoon, filling the air with sand.

The same winds brought rain to Taipei yesterday morning.

In Taipei's Hsinyi District, 55mm of rain fell within an hour. By the time the heaviest rains let up at 10:30am yesterday, Wenshan District had 106mm of rainfall, while Hsintien had 94mm.

The Academia Sinica offices, in Taipei's Nankang District -- hit by Typhoon Nari last week -- was flooded again with waters rising knee-high yesterday.

Heavy rain also flooded areas of Taipei County's Hsichih and Juifang for a second time.

No injuries or damage were reported.

Flood waters also covered the Wuku intersection of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway up to 30cm deep. The flooded area was later cleared.

The heavy downpour led to the activation of two pumps at the Yucheng Water Pump Station. The station has seven pumps altogether which are turned on when the Keelung River swells.

"We just finished repairing all seven of the water pumps at Yucheng Station this morning," said Chen Wei-jan (³¯«Â¤¯), chief of the Bureau of Public Works under the Taipei City Government.

"Since the situation this morning was under control, we just turned on two machines instead of all of them," Chen said.

By the end of yesterday morning, the public works bureau had finished repairing water pumps at the Yucheng, Pinjiang, Wanfeng and Choumei water pump stations.

At the Tachih station, two of six water pumps were still out of order. They are expected to be repaired by the end of next week.

In related news, the Environmental Protection Administration said workers would finish collecting garbage in the Neihu and Nankang districts by 6am today.

The remainder of Taipei City was cleaned up yesterday.

Taiwan Power Company yesterday said that 8,400 households were still left without power in the aftermath of Nari. Among them, nearly 7,000 clients are in the Sungshan, Ta-an, Hsinyi and Chungshan districts.

Another 370 users in the Neihu and Nankang areas were without power, with about 1,000 in Keelung still in the dark.

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