TAIPEI/TOKYO, June 26 (Reuters) – Torrential rains from a passing tropical storm shut down a swathe of southern Taiwan on Friday, leaving more than 5 million people off work or school, while neighbouring Japan issued flooding and landslide warnings.
Typhoon Mekkhala, now a tropical storm and nearing southern Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, did not make direct landfall in Taiwan, but its outer bands have brought heavy rain to parts of the island, especially in Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung in the south.
The governments of all three Taiwanese regions, where more than 5 million people live, ordered offices and schools closed on Friday. Severe flooding in Tainan shut down a section of the main north-south railway line.
Heavy rain and strong winds also lashed wide areas of Japan, which issued high-level warnings for landslides, flooding and swollen rivers in parts of the western and southern regions, and an evacuation order for 2.2 million residents.
The Japan Meteorological Agency warned that a stationary seasonal rain front, combined with warm, moist air feeding into it, was causing intense rainfall, particularly across western Japan.
More than 200 flights were cancelled, dozens of train lines halted and many expressways closed, according to Japan’s land ministry. Toyota suspended a factory in the southern region of Kyushu on Thursday afternoon through the first shift on Friday, with a decision for the second shift due later.
In Taiwan, no casualties have been reported but authorities in Hualien county are evacuating nearly 200 residents from two townships downstream of a rapidly filling barrier lake in the mountains.
Barrier lakes are formed when rocks, landslides or other natural blockages make a dam across a river, normally in a valley, blocking and holding back water, hindering or even stopping natural drainage.
Last year, 19 people died in a different part of Hualien when another barrier lake breached its banks during Super Typhoon Ragasa, unleashing a wall of water and mud into homes.
Rain is forecast to continue over Taiwan for at least the next week, though it will gradually ease.
Precipitation is not all bad news for Taiwan, which relies on the traditional summer and autumn typhoon season to fill up its reservoirs after what are typically dry winters.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei, Chang-Ran Kim and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Christopher Cushing)
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