Typhoon Mekkhala drenches southern Taiwan, shuts schools and rail line

Typhoon Mekkhala’s outer bands forced schools and offices shut across southern Taiwan on Friday, closing the day for more than five million residents and severing a section of the island’s main north-south rail line. The storm never made direct landfall, but it still dumped heavy rain on Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung, where local governments ordered closures and warned of worsening flood risk. As Mekkhala moved past the Ryukyu Islands in southern Japan and tracked northeast, the disruption showed how quickly a passing typhoon can knock out routine travel, work and public services across a dense industrial corridor.

Flooding in Tainan cut part of the Taiwan Railway Corp.’s main north-south line, while the separate high-speed rail line reported no problems. That contrast mattered for commuters and freight moving through the island’s south, where even a short interruption on the conventional rail spine can slow access to workplaces, ports and logistics hubs. Taiwan is accustomed to typhoons, but a storm that stays offshore can still force a broad shutdown when its rain bands land over major cities and transport links.

The Central Weather Administration said the rain was being driven by Mekkhala, strengthening southwesterly winds and an approaching weather front from southern China. On Friday morning, torrential-rain and extremely torrential-rain advisories covered Kaohsiung City, Pingtung County, Tainan City and the Hengchun Peninsula. The agency had said earlier this week that Mekkhala would come closest to Taiwan on Thursday, at about 400 km to 500 km from the island, and was unlikely to trigger a sea warning because its center would remain offshore.

The storm’s impact was already spreading beyond the school and office closures. In Tainan’s mountainous Nanhua District, the Tsailiao River overflowed and stranded 10 residents in Zhongkeng Village, after 88 mm of rain fell in one hour and 174 mm in three hours. In Pingtung County, 28 weather stations recorded more than 400 mm of rain in 12 hours, and Taipei authorities had received 150 disaster reports by 2 p.m., including 107 flooding incidents and 22 landslide-related cases. More than 200 people on the east coast were also set to be evacuated because of a possible barrier-lake breach in the mountains, underscoring how the same storm system spread risk across the island at once.