Five million people off work or school as typhoon causes flooding in southern Taiwan

TAIPEI - Torrential rains from a passing typhoon shut down a swathe of southern Taiwan on Friday, leaving more than five million people off work or school and flooding severing a section of a main rail line.

Although Typhoon Mekkhala, which is now over southern Japan's Ryukyu Islands, did not make direct landfall in Taiwan, its outer bands have brought heavy rain to parts of the island, especially in Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung in the south.

The governments of all three, where more than five million people live, ordered offices and schools closed on Friday.

Severe flooding in Tainan shut down a section of the main north-south railway line, thought the separate high speed rail line reported no problems.

While no casualties have been reported, authorities in Hualien county on Taiwan's east coast are evacuating nearly 200 residents from two townships downstream of a rapidly filling barrier lake in the mountains.

Barrier lakes are formed when rocks, landslides or other natural blockages make a dam across a river, normally in a valley, blocking and holding back water, hindering or even stopping natural drainage.

Last year, 19 people died in a different part of Hualien when another barrier lake breached its banks during Super Typhoon Ragasa, unleashing a wall of water and mud into homes.

Rain is forecast to continue over Taiwan for at least the next week, though it will gradually ease.

Precipitation is not all bad news for Taiwan, which relies on the traditional summer and autumn typhoon season to fill up its reservoirs after what are typically dry winters.

-Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Shri Navaratnam/Reuters