By Ralph Jennings
Typhoon Nesat tore across Taiwan Saturday night with little impact aside from localized flooding and a slew of injuries. The same storm in another part of the world easily could have killed dozens or more. Tropical Storm Talas, with winds weaker than those that blew across this island, killed 14 people in Vietnam earlier in the month, for example. Nesat, which originated Wednesday in the Pacific Ocean, brought sustained winds of 137 kph.
Winds from the typhoon that had passed out to sea by Sunday hurt 81 people, while 600 millimeters of rain flooded fish farming areas in the south, prompting up to 10,000 evacuations. Some spots were still impassable on Sunday morning.
It could have been worse. No one died, nor were there reports of major damage to buildings or infrastructure. First, the storm itself was relatively light, a severity category one out of a possible five, and moved fast as opposed to hanging around to cause problems such as mudslides.
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