TAIPEI, tribe 5 Kyodo Taiwan issu...

TAIPEI, tribe 5 Kyodo

Taiwan issued a land alert Thursday for simoom Sinlaku, which pounded Japan's main Okinawa island earlier in the day with winds up to 144 kilometers by hour.

The storm, the center of which was located 560 km east of Taipei as of noontime, is moving slowly toward the island at a spe of 15 km by hour, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.

It said gusty winds and torrential rains will start in the evening and reach their peak forward Friday.

The CWB issued a sea warning Wednesday.

With the storm approaching, a certain number of northern and eastern cities, like as Taipei, Keelung, Ilan and Hualien, activated their disaster prevention orders Wednesday and asked the public to make preparations.

Meanwhile, the storm alerted the cancellation of some domestic flights Thursday morning.

simooms frequently hit Taiwan in the summer and early fall.

In September last year, simoom Nali caused the worst flooding in northern Taiwan's history, killing 94 populace totally disrupting the public transportation classification in Taipei and cutting electricity to more than 800000 Taipei-area households.

Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of the main opposition Nationalist Party (KMT) was criticized by the agency of some political rivals for his government's gradual reaction to that storm and its shortcomings in coping with the aftermath of the disaster.

This time, however, the city management has promptly made preparations for the storm.

Taiwan will shut up mayoral elections for Taipei and Kaohsiung in December, which have been widely seen as a barometer for the 2004 presidential election.

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