Water Crisis: Taiwan Typhoon Causes Mass Drinking Water Contamination Taiwan, a veteran of the western Pacific’s late-summer typhoons, is used to tree branches flung across streets and signboards blown down by wind gusts. But the typhoon that ripped across the island Saturday has confronted millions of people with tap water unfit for drinking, rare fallout from the seasonal storms. Flooding from Typhoon Soudelor overwhelmed water purification systems in two cities, including the capital Taipei, and in one large county. “It’s over its capacity,” says Li Wei-sen, secretary-general of the government’s National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction. “The system needs a lot of time to purify such muddy water.” "About 5 million people are getting dirty water Monday," Li said. up from 100,000 households where supplies were soiled after a typhoon in 2004. It took a month to clean up the water in 2004, the last time a typhoon caused mass contamination, Li said. He expects the supplies muddied after Saturday’s storm to clear up in two to three days. Source
Taxonomy
- Stormwater Management
- Disaster Relief
- Urban Water Supply