Krathon wreaks havoc in Philippines and Taiwan

Taiwan is reeling from another powerful catastrophic event that forced it to effectively shut down for days in the form of typhoon Krathon.

The powerful typhoon, the 18th named storm of the current typhoon season, hit the northern Philippines and Taiwan between 30 September and 4 October, generating torrential rainfall and damaging winds that resulted in significant material damage and casualties. “Total economic losses are expected to reach the tens of millions USD,” reported Aon.

The broker explained that the system reached typhoon status on 29 September, starting to affect the northern Philippines, Luzon Islands in particular, with heavy rains and a wind swath extending 220km away from the centre.

The storm, named Julian in the Philippines, crossed the Batanes Islands on 30 September as a Category 3 storm. The next day, Krathon reached its peak intensity, with one-minute sustained winds of 240kph (150mph) and a central pressure of 915 hPa, peaking as a Category 4-equivalent storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, explained Aon in its weekly cat report.

On 3 October, Krathon made landfall over Siaogang District in southern Taiwan as a Category 1-equivalent storm, with wind gusts up to 160kph (100mph). Apart from the damaging winds, Krathon brought heavy rainfall over the northern Philippines. The slow movement of the typhoon resulted in torrential rainfall also over southern Taiwan.

“More impacts are likely in the next few days while heavy rainfall continues to fall over all of Taiwan. Financial loss damage assessments are being developed since the event is still ongoing across Taiwan at the time of this writing. Economic losses in the Philippines’ Batanes are expected to reach at least ₱600m ($11m),” said Aon.

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