TAIPEI – The third typhoon to hit Taiwan in two weeks killed four people and injured scores Tuesday, bringing violent winds and heavy rain as schools and offices closed.

Typhoon Megi forced thousands to evacuate their homes and played havoc with rail and road networks as it made landfall in the eastern county of Hualien in the early afternoon.

One man aged 40 died in a car accident in high winds while a 65-year-old man was killed when he was hit by falling scaffolding, and a 17-year-old boy drowned when his boat overturned, authorities said, with the deaths all in the south.

Also in the south, a 48-year-old man fell to his death as he was repairing the roof of a house.

At least 167 people were injured, including seven Japanese tourists and a local guide when their bus was bowled over by winds on a highway in central Taiwan, according to the national fire agency.

Billboards and scaffolding were torn down while trees were uprooted and roofs ripped off. Television footage showed waves surging past breakwaters in the northeastern county of Yilan and outlying Orchid Island.

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Typhoon Megi hits Taiwan

Source:

AFP

Reuters

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Over 11,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and nearly 3,000 are in shelters, according to the Central Emergency Operation Centre. Over two million households have lost power and more than 35,000 households are without water.

Four hundred international and domestic flights were cancelled as of Tuesday afternoon, and over 400 delayed. Most trains and ferries were halted.

In the capital Taipei, which was also lashed by downpours and winds, bus services and overground metro trains were suspended as some roads were flooded.

More than 1,000 millimetres (39 inches) of rain had fallen in mountainous areas of Yilan as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the weather bureau.

It said accumulated rainfall in some mountainous areas could reach 1,300 millimetres before the storm moves on, increasing the risk of landslides.

“Typhoon Megi has weakened slightly in the past three hours but it will continue to bring winds and rains to Taiwan till tomorrow,” said weather bureau forecaster Hung Jen-sheng.

At 1000 GMT Megi was 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the central city of Taichung, packing gusts of up to 191 kilometres per hour.

It is moving at 15 kilometres per hour.

More than 35,000 soldiers are on standby to help with disaster relief.

Ahead of the storm, 3,700 tourists had been evacuated at the weekend from Orchid Island and Green Island.

Hualien and Taitung were first to be hit by the storm.

Those areas are still recovering from damage brought by Super Typhoon Meranti earlier this month – the strongest storm for 21 years to hit Taiwan.

Meranti, which left one dead in Taiwan before killing another 28 as it moved to eastern China, was followed closely by the smaller Typhoon Malakas.

Strongest typhoon of the year Meranti

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

AFP, Reuters

BANGKOK – Thai police said Tuesday that two men accused of hiding a dismembered body in a Bangkok house freezer and running a fake passport ring are Americans.

The pair were arrested last week along with a third suspect who allegedly opened fire on police during a raid on the shophouse they used as a crime den in the Thai capital.

They were caught in possession of multiple passports, a cache of drugs and three guns. A search of a padlocked freezer found the body of a foreigner chopped into six pieces.

“We confirm two of them are Americans,” said Bangkok’s police chief Sanit Mahathavorn, after several days of liasing with US authorities to identify the men.

Sanit declined to name the men.

The case has gripped the Thai public with its gruesome nature and suggestions of foreign-run crime networks operating in the heart of the capital.

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Foreigners arrested as Thai police find dead body in fridge

Source:

The Nation/ANN

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Yet police are still trying to gather firm details including the nationality of the third suspect, named by officers as “Peter”, who reportedly shot and injured a policeman during the raid.

“Peter has ten passports. We cannot yet identify his nationality,” said Sanit, adding that police are searching for his Thai wife for more clues.

Forensic officers have yet to identify the man inside the freezer and say it is still unclear how he died and whether he was dismembered before or after death.

The three men have been charged with multiple offences, including concealing a body, forging official documents and attempting to kill an officer on duty.

Police said they denied the charges and have told officers the freezer belonged to someone else.

Foreign criminals and fugitives have long sought out Thailand as a hub for running syndicates involved in everything from gem thefts to people-smuggling and contract killing.

A thriving fake documents trade has helped shield countless criminals from authorities, with local police notorious for accepting bribes to look the other way.

In February a Spanish man was arrested for allegedly extorting and murdering a compatriot in Bangkok and tossing his body parts into the city’s main river, where they were later discovered by police.

TOKYO – Hate standing in line at your favourite restaurant? Japanese carmaker Nissan claims to have just the thing for those sore legs.

A company video released Tuesday re-enacts a busy restaurant with patrons waiting outside.

They’re all sitting in a row of chairs but they won’t have to stand when the next hungry diner is called to a table.

Instead, the chairs – equipped with autonomous technology that detects the seat ahead – glide along a path toward the front of the line.

The now empty chair at the front moves out of pole position.

The system, which is similar to the kind used in Nissan’s autonomous vehicle technology, will be tested at select restaurants in Japan this year, Nissan said.

“(It) appeals to anyone who has queued for hours outside a crowded restaurant: it eliminates the tedium and physical strain of standing in line,” it added.

Although Tokyo has some 160,000 restaurants, long queues are not uncommon.

The world’s longest and highest glass bridge in Zhangjiajie, Central China’s Hunan province will reopen on Sept 28 after being closed down due to “overwhelming visitors”.

Tickets went on sale from 10am on Tuesday.

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China unveils world’s longest and highest glass bridge in Zhangjiajie

Source:

AFP

Reuters

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First opened to public on Aug 20, the 430-metre-long, six-metre-wide bridge, paved with 99 panes of three-layer transparent glasses, hangs between two steep cliffs 300 meters above the ground.

People test strength of glass bridge in China with sledgehammers

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

YouTube screengrabs, Reuters

The bridge has reportedly set 10 world records spanning its design and construction.

Most terrifying bridges in the world

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Wikimedia Commons, Pinterest screengrab

BANGKOK – Thailand is investigating four suspected cases of Zika-related microcephaly in three babies and a 36-week old unborn baby, the public health minister said on Tuesday, in what could be the first cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia.

Several countries in Southeast Asia have reported increasing cases of infection from the mosquito-borne Zika virus but Thailand has one of the highest numbers in the region, with 349 confirmed since January, including 25 pregnant women.

Public Health Minister Piyasakon Sakolsatayadorn said authorities needed to be thorough in their investigation of the cases as confirmation would be “sensitive”. “The lab results will take at least two days because we have to be thorough with this as it is a big deal and a link hasn’t been detected before,” Piyasakon told Reuters. “This is a sensitive matter for Thailand,” he said.

US health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

Piyasakon said the three babies were born with small heads and an ultrasound appeared to indicate the unborn baby had a small head.

Of the four mothers, two were diagnosed with Zika when they were pregnant but two were not confirmed to have had Zika, said Apichai Mongkol, director-general of the ministry’s Department of Medical Sciences.

If a Thai case were confirmed, it would be the first in Southeast Asia, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

Locally-transmitted Zika in Singapore

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The Straits Times, The New Paper

MONITORING

Some health experts have accused Thailand, which has a thriving tourist industry, of playing down the risk from Zika.

But officials dismiss that saying the response has been adequate and another mosquito-born disease, dengue, which can be deadly, is a bigger threat.

The director-general of Thailand’s Disease Control Department, Amnuay Gajeena, said the four cases were being monitored but he declined to say exactly where they were suspected of contracting the virus. “It is not in Bangkok,” Amnuay told Reuters.

“Both the mothers and babies are being tested and we have sent the tests to several labs.” There are no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly, but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO.

The World Health Organisation lists Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam as countries reporting new cases of Zika.

Singapore has recorded 393 cases since diagnosing its first in August. It has confirmed 16 pregnant women with the virus.

What is the Zika virus?

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Reuters, The Straits Times, The New Paper, NEA

The WHO has also said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.

According to the WHO, there are two major lineages of Zika – an African lineage, which has only been reported in Africa, where the virus was first discovered in 1947, and an Asian lineage of strains.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 per cent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.