Postboxes in Taipei battered by typhoon become visitor attraction

TAIPEI - A pair of Taipei postboxes battered by the deadly Typhoon Soudelor over the weekend have become an unlikely attraction, drawing thousands of visitors and even serving as the backdrop to a wedding photo shoot.

The two iron mailboxes, one green and the other red, were bent out of shape by a billboard ripped from a nearby building by strong winds, and now stand as if leaning to the right.

"The mailboxes drew thousands of visitors the past three days," said Tu Li-teng, an official from Chunghwa Post Co., which owns the boxes.

"On Sunday alone, we estimated that around 4,000 people came. We've had to send three people over every day to help maintain order and traffic."

A 20-year-old woman, who identified herself as Mimi, said while waiting in a long line for photos on Tuesday: "The two boxes are really cute. We saw them on Internet, so we decided to have some photos with them."

A bride and groom were also waiting their turn to pose with the postboxes.

"I've never seen such thing during a career of more than 30 years," a postman, who was helping to manage the queue, told AFP.

"This could be the only happy event I could think of from the typhoon," he said.

Typhoon Soudelor - which hit in the early hours of Saturday and was billed as this year's most powerful storm - uprooted trees, brought down electricity poles and knocked out power to a record 4.3 million households, leaving eight dead and four missing.