Taiwan evacuated more than 8,300 people ahead of Wednesday’s arrival of a greatly weakened Typhoon Fung-wong, which brought heavy downpours to the mountainous east coast and triggered sometimes neck-high floods.
Businesses and schools were closed in most southern areas of the island, with 51 people injured.
Television images showed severe flooding in parts of the largely rural eastern county of Yilan, with water up to their necks, as soldiers launched rescue efforts for those stranded.
“The water came in so fast,” said fisherman Hung Chun-yi, who spent the night clearing mud from his home in the eastern port city of Suao after its first floor was engulfed in water 60cm (2ft) deep.
“It rained so much, and so fast, that the drainage couldn’t handle it.”
Fire officials said about 8,300 people were moved from their homes to safer areas, mostly in Yilan and nearby Hualien, where a monsoon from the north increased rainfall with the unnervingly late typhoon.
Yilan’s city of Dongshan received 794 mm (31 inches) of rain on Tuesday, weather officials said.
Fung-wong is expected to graze the extreme southern tip of Taiwan later Wednesday before heading out into the Pacific Ocean. It lost significant strength after swirling through the Philippines to kill 18 people.
A typhoon in September triggered floods that killed 18 people in Hualien.
