Taiwan looks for missing after Super Typhoon Ragasa.

25/9/2025 16:06

Taiwan searched on Thursday for 33 people missing after a strong typhoon flooded a lake above a small town on its remote east coast, leading to a disaster as many victims were too elderly to follow evacuation guidance to go upstairs in their homes.



The deaths, their tally revised down to 14 from 17, followed heavy rains brought by the outer bands of Super Typhoon Ragasa to Hualien county, causing a barrier lake in the mountains to overflow and release a wall of water on the town of Guangfu.



Sub-tropical Taiwan normally has a well-honed drill for evacuations ahead of typhoons, especially in the mountainous and sparsely populated east coast, which limits casualties.



But the number of dead this time has prompted questions whether an order to head upstairs from the ground floor was appropriate, and what could have been done differently.



"Beyond mourning the victims, we must investigate the causes of death, which predominantly occurred on the first floors," Premier Cho Jung-tai told a cabinet meeting on Thursday.



"Clarifying these factors is essential for refining future evacuation protocols."