《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 CWB issues sea alert as Typhoon Goni approaches

By Jonathan Chin and Shelley Shan / Staff writer, with staff reporter

The Central Weather Bureau （CWB） yesterday issued a sea alert for Typhoon Goni, which is approaching the east coast after strengthening.

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As of 8:30pm yesterday, the center of the typhoon was 450km southeast of Oluanpi （鵝鑾鼻）. It was moving northwest at a speed of 8kph.

The radius of the storm has expanded to 200km.

The sea alert applies to vessels operating at the Bashi Channel, as well as near the southeast coast, including Green Island （綠島） and Orchid Island （Lanyu, 蘭嶼）.

The bureau said that the nation would gradually be affected by Goni’s circumfluence, with high chances of showers and strong precipitations forecast nationwide today. It added that the typhoon could move northeast away from Taiwan or come closer to the nation before turning north, with the movements generating two different results.

In related news, the Taipei Water Department yesterday announced its newly revised procedure for suspending the water supply, after the city government came under heavy fire after Typhoon Soudelor hit earlier in the month for supplying water with a turbidity of more than 30,000 nephelometric turbidity units （NTUs）.

According to the new guideline, when a reservoir’s raw water turbidity reaches 6,000 NTUs, the volume of water drawn from it will be reduced, and as soon as turbidity reaches 12,000 NTUs the reservoir will be cut off completely, Taipei Water Department Director Chen Chin-hsiang （陳錦祥） said.

Within three hours of the cut-off, the department will assess whether to turn the water back on by observing rainfall levels upstream, turbidity of the raw water, available capacity of the water purification plants and demand for water downstream.

Chen said that about 143,000 households would be affected at the sixth hour of a cut-off and at the 24th hour, 1 million households. If a cut-off lasts more than 24 hours, restoring supply would take about two days, and more than that at the ends of water mains and in regions at high elevations.

The Taipei Water Department said that since the water tanks in most apartment buildings contain about a day’s worth of water under normal use, those households that draw water from a building water tank instead of directly from the city pipes should take advantage of it by conserving water from the day before a typhoon.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES