Tropical Storm Kong-Rey pounded southern Taiwan with torrential rain on Thursday, triggering widespread flooding and disrupting air and rail traffic, the government said.
Houses in the island’s south were inundated by floodwater as deep as three metres after heavy rain started to fall from late Wednesday, according to the National Fire Agency.
Television footage showed rescuers carrying patients from a nursing home to rubber boats in Tainan county before dawn while cars were stranded in nearby Chiayi, two of the worst affected areas.
“The water quickly came up as deep as waist height and it was flooded in about 15 minutes,” a staffer at the nursing home told reporters.
Rescuers were searching for a fisherman who was missing after his boat capsized on Wednesday off the northeast coast, according to the fire agency.
Most offices and schools were closed in southern Taiwan, where up to 600 millimetres of rain had fallen since Tuesday, the government said.