“ No warning, ‘say the residents of Taiwan after the typhoon bursts the mountain lake

When flood waters rushed from the mountain, Awa and her husband tried to go to their car – but it was already too late.

“It was like an outside river and the cars floated. It all started to derive,” said the owner of the 42 -year -old bookstore. The couple looked for refuge on the second floor of their shop in the canton of Guangfu, trying to save as many books as possible.

“I’m still in shock. I can’t imagine how it could have happened,” she said.

Like many Taiwanese, Awa is in shock from unexpected fatal destruction caused by the Super Typhon Ragasa, even if the island was not on the direct path of the strongest storm that the world has seen this year.

The violation of a barrier lake – formed after landslides triggered by another typhoon blocked by rivers in a mountain valley remote in July – is the main cause of significant damage in the Oriental county of Hualien, said Huang Chao Chin, the assistant commander of the Central Emergency Operation Center of Taiwan.

The people who were on the Mortal Water of the Water Wall who swept the side of the mountain had little chance when it was taking a bridge, uprooted trees and submerged vehicles.

Many of those who died were elderly people, trapped by water entering their homes.

Lake Barrière du Ruisseau Matai’an is about 11 km (7 miles) from downstream communities.

He held some 91 million tonnes of water, enough to fill 36,000 Olympic pools. About three -quarters of this water was suddenly released after the lake broke on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 32 others. Forty-six people are still not counted.

Emergency services said water was depth in Guangfu, the worst of the city. It increased as high as the second floor of a house in certain places and was about a floor in the city center.

The strength of water raging by the lake bursting could be compared to a tsunami, said Chen Wen Shan, professor emeritus of geology at the National University of Taiwan.

“Kinetic energy could even be greater than that of a tsunami. The flow speed can exceed 100 km / h (62 MPH) per hour,” he told the BBC. “Although the energy decreases once it reaches the plains, it remains powerful and fast – far beyond a typical river embankment can manage.”

Guangfu survivors said they had not received any warnings from the authorities immediately before the disaster.

But Professor Chen said that the university community had already sounded the alarm, because universities closely monitored the water level of Lake Barrière and worked with the authorities on emergency plans.

“With the approaching typhoon, we could estimate the precipitation. We knew that the water could overflow the lake this time. Part of the dam was also collapsed, which caused a large volume of water. But even this volume was in our estimates,” he said.

“Not properly evacuating residents is one of the factors for which the disaster has become so serious.”

On Monday, September 22, one day before Ragasa approaches the island, the Hualien authorities issued warnings, evacuated around 7,000 people and created three evacuation centers. Meanwhile, the central government has repeatedly urged the county administration to accelerate evacuations.

But the evacuation was “not compulsory” and local officials only called on the public to go to higher ground, said the county of Hualien, Yang Hua-Mei, at the BBC.

It was shortly before 3:00 p.m. local time (07:00 GMT) Tuesday when Lake Barrier overflowed. The managers expected that he would make flood waters two hours to reach the inhabited areas downstream and only people living near the river would be affected.

But in less than an hour, large amounts of water poured into the canton of Guangfu, where 12,000 people live.

“There was no flood warning and no broadcasting,” said a high school administrator in Guangfu at the BBC under the cover of anonymity. The school was designated as an evacuation center, it was therefore originally responsible for helping the evacuated.

He said he had just finished lunch around 3:00 p.m. when he heard that the lake had broken out his banks.

“In 10 minutes, the water spread to the street campus. The 400-mile on foot sports field was overwhelmed,” he said. Chairs, tables, refrigerators and even cars were floating soon.

“If I had always been on the street, I could not have achieved a higher ground. There were a lot of items floating in the water. I could have been struck or even electrocuted.”

The administrator said that officials could have underestimated the impact of Ragasa – the lake had not violated its banks when a lower typhoon hit last month.

Since last week, the mayor of County Hsu Chen-Wei has been traveling to South Korea to promote tourism. She returned to Hualien Monday evening – apparently after a call from the Minister of the Interior.

Those like Awa and her husband at the bookstore, and the school administrator were able to go safe in time.

But many victims of the flood were the elderly. Most of the bodies were found on the ground floor of houses, according to local media.

“Residents of rural elderly people generally receive information through door-to-door communication. We do not know how local authorities had informed them and managed the situation,” said Awa. The population of Hualien is aging and many of its older residents do not use smartphones.

“Many elderly residents are also alleged due to a chronic disease, and no one could help them,” said Yang.

But Professor Chen stressed that there were no quick solutions. For barrier lakes composed of the harder rocky substratum, small energning operations can be carried out to divert water, he said. But in this case, the lake is made up of land and more loose rocks.

“In addition, there are no roads leading to the mountains, so heavy machines cannot be deployed.”

Taiwan has a lot of experience in barrier lakes – 88 have been trained on the island since the 1970s, according to the Taiwan public television service. Of these 57% formed after the typhoons; 23% of earthquakes. Most disappear in a year, although four have been there for decades.

But the public of Taiwan has little understanding of the lakes of Barrière, the former Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-Yuan, a trained civil engineer, told local media. He said that many researchers witness the breakup of a barrier lake for the first time.

Hualien, which is almost 90% mountainous, is not foreign to natural disasters either. The county is often the first location in Taiwan to face the typhoons, and its location on the Pacific fire ring means that it is subject to earthquakes.

Calamies in the past two years, including an earthquake of deadly magnitude 7.1 in 2024, have devastated the county tourism industry, said Ms. Yang. Many picturesque places and roads in the world’s renowned Taroko national park are still closed after the earthquake.

The county also has the largest Aboriginal population in Taiwan, the husband of Awa being one of them. The couple began the bookstore four years ago with the mission of preserving the history of indigenous peoples – and they moved to its current location just a few months ago.

Now the bookstore is soaked with mud and they take stock of the damage.

“I’m really sad because some books have already been exhausted,” she said.

But at least she and her husband are safe.

Others from the city have to face the lost dear beings or worried about parents and injured friends or those who are still missing.

An Mrs. Shih in tears, whose 87 -year -old mother was killed, told local media that her body was covered with debris inside their house.

“We hope that the government and the police will be able to contact us soon and help recover my mother’s body so that it can be buried.”

Additional report by Lok Lee from BBC News Chinese in Taipei