Taiwan forecasters warned yesterday that tropical storm Tembin could return early this week after triggering the worst downpour in over a century on the island’s southernmost tip.

Tembin, initially graded a “severe” typhoon by the Hong Kong Observatory, swept across southern Taiwan on Friday before moving out to sea, where it was packing winds gusting up to 101 kilometres an hour.

“There is roughly a 50 per cent risk Tembin could affect Taiwan again tomorrow or Tuesday depending on its path,” said forecaster Lin Bin-yu, from Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.

Tembin’s course hinged partly on Typhoon Bolaven, which was not expected to head directly to Taiwan, he said. Bolaven was moving towards southern Japan and predicted to hit Okinawa this afternoon.

Tembin unleashed torrential rain in the southern Pingtung county that was described as the worst in more than a century.

Weather bureau data showed Pingtung as a whole received 724 mm of rain since last Wednesday, while the township of Hengchun saw rainfall of over 600 mm on Friday alone.

“In Hengchun, it’s a record amount of rainfall since 1896,” said Hsieh Ming-gung, a forecaster with the weather bureau. Hengchun has a population of about 30,000 and forms Taiwan’s southern-most tip.

Television footage showed scenes from villages in Pingtung county, where pedestrians were walking through ankle-deep water, while workers removed debris left by flooding.

Young military conscripts walked from house to house to help residents put their homes back in order after they had been engulfed by mudflows, TV showed.

“Flooding in the Hengchun area on Friday was very serious, and worse even than Morakot,” said Chen Cheng-chia,an official with the Pingtung Fire Agency.