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According to the Hualien County Fire Department, the majority of the victims were elderly and unable to escape Matai’an Creek Barrier Lake’s rising floodwaters on Wednesday.

According to the fire department, 34 people were hurt, and rescue efforts for the missing were in progress.

The lake, which was created by debris left over from previous rains, overflowed on Tuesday morning, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA), followed by a much larger surge in floodwater at around 4: 30 pm local time (08: 30 GMT).

Fast-moving waters scurried through Guangfu Township’s video footage, dragging vehicles, and destroying a bridge.

According to the CNA, many people remained on their roofs until floodwaters receded, leaving behind mud and debris.

As it moved southward, Super Typhoon Ragasa swept Taiwan and its neighboring islands with strong winds and rain earlier this week.

According to the CNA, some areas of Hualien County on Taiwan’s rugged east coast experienced upwards of 700mm of rainfall, while towns in the south and east received 500-600mm of rain.

In a Facebook post late on Tuesday, Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te announced that all government departments and the military were working together to assist with the cleanup and emergency response.

“Everyone must maintain vigilance,” According to Lai, all frontline disaster response personnel are advised to prioritize their own safety when performing their duties.

More than 160 flights to Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport were canceled on Wednesday morning, and some places had suspended ferry and rail lines.

In response to the typhoon, which started shutting down flights on Tuesday and headed to or from Hong Kong and Macau, the majority of cancelled flights were short-haul hops.

On Wednesday, Hong Kong’s weather officials issued their highest typhoon warning of “T10” and warned of potential landslides as the storm passed through the Chinese territory, which is located 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest.

Ragasa put an end to life on the southern Chinese coast by hurling waves higher than lampposts onto Hong Kong promenades.

The Hong Kong Observatory noted the storm’s maximum “sustained” winds of 112-1153 km/h (70-95 mph) and maximum gusts of 184 km/h (114 mph) on Wednesday morning, but it was still expected to make an appearance as of 11am local time (03:30 GMT).

Typhoon warnings would still be in place, according to the HKO, because the storm’s effects were still being felt.

“Public officials should be on high alert and watch out for destructive winds.” The observatory predicted that today’s local weather will be persistently bad, with frequent heavy squally showers and thunderstorms.

“Seas will be absolutely fantastic with swells.”

More than 700 flights would be canceled as a result of the typhoon, according to the Hong Kong Free Press.

After the White House suggested sabotage, the UN was forced to release a statement offering an innocent explanation for an escalator malfunction involving US President Donald Trump.

The US president and Melania Trump had to walk up an escalator shortly before Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday when the stairway abruptly ceased.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted to the incident, saying that any UN employee who was found to have purposefully stopped the escalator should be fired and subject to immediate investigation.

A screenshot of an article by The Times, where the British newspaper’s Washington editor, Katy Balls, claimed UN staff had made a joke about shutting off elevators and escalators so Trump “has to walk up the stairs,” Leavitt included in her post.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric responded to the outcry, citing the unintended consequence of a videographer from Trump’s delegation climbing the escalator ahead of the president and the first lady.

A built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was activated at the top of the escalator, according to a subsequent investigation, which included a readout of the machine’s central processing unit.

“The safety mechanism is intended to keep objects from getting caught in the gearing or getting pulled into it.” The videographer may have unintentionally activated the above-described safety feature.

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung did not respond to a message asking for a response to the UN statement.

Trump himself made an appearance to take the incident personally, joked at the UN that the only thing he received from the international body was a “bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”

Trump said, “She’s in great shape, but she’s in great shape,” which caused audience laughter.

“We’re both in good shape,” the statement goes.

Trump later addressed the incident once more in a post on Truth Social.

Trump wrote that the teleprompter was broken and the escalator abruptly slammed as we were ridding up the podium, but both of those things likely contributed to the speaker’s more engaging speech.