Typhoon headed to Taiwan injures dozens, with thousands evacuated

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (AP) — An approaching typhoon bringing strong winds and torrential rainfall to Taiwan killed one person and injured dozens of others over the past few days and led to the evacuation of thousands from low-lying or mountainous areas.

At least 70 people were injured and one person died due to weather conditions attributed to Typhoon Krathon, Taiwan’s fire department said Wednesday.

One elderly man died after falling off a ladder while pruning tree branches in the eastern city of Hualien. Two others were missing.

The typhoon, packing maximum sustained winds of 173 kph (108 mph) and gusts of 209 kph (130 mph), was expected to make landfall early Thursday on Taiwan’s densely populated west coast, according to the Central Weather Administration.

Typhoons rarely hit Taiwan’s west coast, affecting instead the mountainous, eastern side of the island.

At least 128 centimeters (4.2 feet) of rain has fallen in coastal Taitung county in the past four days and 43 centimeters (17 inches) in the major port city of Kaohsiung ahead of the typhoon.

Authorities shut schools and government offices across the island and canceled all domestic flights.

In Hualien county, more than 3,000 people were evacuated from townships vulnerable to landslides. Almost 200 people in the southwestern city of Tainan and more than 800 residents of the southern Pingtung county were also evacuated.

Kaohsiung, a city of 2.7 million people expected to be directly hit by the typhoon, evacuated more than 2,500 of its residents from areas prone to mudslides and landslides. Military personnel helped evacuees into trucks which took them to temporary shelters.

Most stores and restaurants in the city remained closed for a second consecutive day. Shoppers emptied supermarket shelves of essentials including bread, meat and instant noodles.

Streets and markets were eerily empty. An industrial harbor south of the city was at a standstill.

Kaohsiung’s international airport looked deserted, with all flights canceled. Chan Ka Who, who had traveled there from Malaysia on vacation, said he was trying to return home but was stuck in Kaohsiung because all flights were grounded.

On Wednesday evening, the typhoon was centered about 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of Kaohsiung and was moving northeastward at around 8 kph (5 mph). It has been weakening and will continue to do so after landfall, the weather administration said.

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai earlier warned residents against approaching areas prone to flooding and landslides near rivers, the sea and the mountains. He likened Krathon’s intensity to that of Typhoon Thelma, which in 1977 badly damaged Kaohsiung and caused 37 deaths.

Almost 40,000 troops were on standby to help with rescue efforts.

In Pingtung county, residents near a flooded harbor piled up sandbags at their doors to prevent water from getting in. People waded through streets flooded up to their ankles.

The typhoon on Monday lashed the northern Philippine islands, where four people were killed and at least 5,000 were displaced, officials said.

A woman struggles with winds generated by Typhoon Krathon in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A woman struggles with winds generated by Typhoon Krathon in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A woman struggles with winds generated by Typhoon Krathon in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

An airline staffer works at the counter at a closed airport due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Waves crash onto the coastline of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon approaches to Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Waves crash on the coastline in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon approaches to Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People went to airline counters to ask about canceled flights due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Waves crash on the coastline in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon approaches to Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A man takes a selfie with waves hitting the shore of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Airline staff work at the counter at a closed airport due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A car moves along the shore in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A car moves along the shore in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People went to airline counters at an airport to ask about canceled flights due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A man runs away from waves when he was walking along the shore in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Cabrel Ngounou's life in Cameroon quickly unraveled after neighbors caught the teenager with his boyfriend.

A crowd surrounded his boyfriend's house and beat him. Ngounou's family learned of the relationship and kicked him out. So Ngounou fled — alone and with little money — on a dangerous, four-year journey through at least five countries. He was sexually assaulted in a Libyan prison, harassed in Tunisia and tried unsuccessfully to take a boat to Europe.

"The worst thing was that they caught us. So it was not easy for my family," Ngounou said. “My sisters told me I need to get out of the house because my place is not there. So that’s what really pushed me to leave my country.”

Ngounou's troubles drew attention after he joined a protest outside the U.N. refugee agency's Tunisia office. Eventually, he arrived in the United States, landing in San Francisco in March.

Ngounou joined a growing number of LGBTQ+ people accepted into the Welcome Corps, which launched last year and pairs groups of Americans with newly arrived refugees. So far, the resettlement program has connected 3,500 sponsors with 1,800 refugees, and many more want to help: 100,000 people have applied to become sponsors.

President Joe Biden has sought to rebuild the refugee programs Donald Trump largely dismantled as president, working to streamline the process of screening and placing people in America. New refugee resettlement sites have opened across the country, and on Tuesday, the Biden Administration announced that it resettled 100,000 refugees in fiscal year 2024, the largest number in more than three decades.

In contrast, Trump has pledged to bar refugees from Gaza, reinstate his Muslim ban and impose “ideological screening” for all immigrants if he regains the presidency. He and running mate JD Vance are laying groundwork for their goal of deporting millions of illegal immigrants by amplifying false claims, such as the accusation that Haitians given temporary protected status to remain in the U.S. legally are eating pets in Ohio.

Under Biden, meanwhile, two human rights officials in the State Department were tasked last year with identifying refugees who face persecution either due to their sexual orientation or human rights advocacy.

“LGBTQ refugees are forced to flee their homes due to persecution and violence, not unlike other people,” said Jeremy Haldeman, deputy executive director of the Community Sponsorship Hub, which implements the Welcome Corps on behalf of the State Department. But they are particularly vulnerable because they're coming from places "where their identities are criminalized and they are at risk of imprisonment or even death.”

More than 60 countries have passed anti-LGBTQ laws and thousands of people have fled the Middle East and Africa seeking asylum in Europe. In April, Uganda’s constitutional court on Wednesday upheld an anti-gay law that allows the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”

“There are just a lot of people who are really at risk and are not safe in their country, and they’re usually not safe in the neighboring or regional countries either,” Kathryn Hampton, senior adviser for U.S. Strategy at Rainbow Railroad, which helps LGBTQI+ people facing persecution.

The demand far outstrips capacity: Of more than 15,000 requests for help in 2023, the nonprofit helped resettle 23 refugees through the Welcome Corps program in cities as large as Houston and towns as small as Arlington, Vermont. It has a goal of resettling 50 this year.

"So, we have a lot of urgency as an organization to find and create new pathways that LGBTQI+ people can access to find safety,” Hampton said.

Another refugee in the program, Julieth Luna Garcia, is a transgender woman from El Salvador who settled in Chicago.

Speaking through a translator, the 31-year-old Garcia said she suffered abuse from her family because of her trans identity and couldn't legally access gender-affirming care until she arrived in the United States.

"I lived with constant fear, even more so at night. I didn’t like to go out. I was really scared that somebody would find me alone and do something,” Garcia said. Since arriving in February, Garcia has found a place to live and a job as a home health aide and hopes to study to become a lawyer. "Here, I’m not scared to say who I am. I’m not scared to tell anyone," she said.

Maybe the biggest change was starting hormone treatments, she said: “To see yourself in the mirror and see these changes, I can’t really explain it, but it’s really big. It’s an emotional and exciting thing and something I thought I would never experience.”

Welcome Corps sponsors are expected to help refugees adjust for at least three months after they arrive. Garcia said the five volunteers helped her “adapt to a new life with a little less difficulty,” by accessing benefits, getting a work permit and enrolling in English classes.

Ngounou recalled how his sponsors, a team of seven that included a lesbian couple, Anne Raeff and Lori Ostlund, hosted him and connected him with LGBTQ resources and a work training program. They also served as his tour guides to gay life, taking him to the historically gay Castro district, where Ngounou got his first glimpse of the huge rainbow Pride flag and stopped to read every plaque honoring famous gay people.

“Cabrel was just very, very moved by that. Just kind of started crying. We all did,” Raeff recalled.

“I know that feeling like when we were young, when you’d go into a gay bar and you’d feel like this sense of kind of freedom, like this community,” she said. “That was the only place where you could go and actually be open. And that ... this is this community of people and we all have this in common.”

Now the 19-year-old Ngounou works in a coffee shop and takes college courses, with the goal of becoming a social worker. He hopes the boyfriend he met in Tunisia can visit him in San Francisco — and he still finds it hard to believe that they can share their love openly.

“Here I’m really me ... I feel free,” he said with a laugh. "I feel free to have my boyfriend and walk with him in the street. I feel free, you know, to enjoy myself with him wherever we want to enjoy ourselves. But in Tunisia or anywhere else, in Cameroon, you have to hide such things.”

Julieth Luna Garcia, a transgender woman from El Salvador, looks into a compact mirror at Horner Park in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Julieth Luna Garcia, a transgender woman from El Salvador, smiles as she listens to Drew Heckman from Rainbow Railroad at Horner Park in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Julieth Luna Garcia, a transgender woman from El Salvador, poses for photos at Horner Park in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Julieth Luna Garcia, a transgender woman from El Salvador, sits on a bench as she looks at trees at Horner Park in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Julieth Luna Garcia, a transgender woman from El Salvador, takes a walk at Horner Park in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Julieth Luna Garcia, a transgender woman from El Salvador, poses for photos at Horner Park in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME Cabrel Ngounou, a refugee from Cameroon, poses for a photo in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME Cabrel Ngounou, a refugee from Cameroon, poses for a photo in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME Cabrel Ngounou, right, a refugee from Cameroon, walks with his sponsor Anne Raeff, in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME Cabrel Ngounou, right, a refugee from Cameroon, talks with his sponsor Lori Ostlund in her home in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME Cabrel Ngounou, center, a refugee from Cameroon, talks with his sponsors Lori Ostlund, left, and Anne Raeff in their home in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)