Halfway up Taiwan’s central mountain ranges, two young women were working a shift at the town’s service station in August when the landslide hit. As torrent of water, mud and rocks gushed down they ran next door for shelter, a decision that probably saved their lives. Moments later, the station became buried under tonnes of earth and rock.
The disaster in Ren’ai township was one of countless landslides in the same month across Nantou, a landlocked county in central Taiwan, triggered by torrential rain brought by the whipping tail of distant typhoon Khanun.
