While welcoming the first 'significant' front of the plum rain season, the Central Weather Bureau issued a warning Sunday against torrential rain nationwide and in central and southern Taiwan in particular. 'Members of the public are advised not to take the coming precipitation front lightly, as its force has just begun, ' warned Cheng Ming-tien, director of the Central Weather Bureau's Weather Forecast Center, in a post on Facebook. The Central Weather Bureau issued warnings around noon Sunday against torrential rain, forecasting that precipitation around Taiwan proper and the outlying islands could reach the 'torrential rain' level -- 130 mm in 24 hours -- in the coming two days. Cheng called for the public to make disaster-prevention preparations. As of noon that day, rainfall in Alishan in the southern county of Chiayi had reached 87 mm, with 84 mm recorded in Wuqi, Hengshan and Shengang townships in the central county of Taichung, according to the weather bureau. Meanwhile, the Highway Bureau activated emergency alert and evacuation mechanisms for mountainous areas in southern Kaohsiung County, including Taoyuan and Namasia rural townships, where the land has become fragile after Typhoon Morakot wreaked havoc last August. Hsu Wen-yi, a patrolman with the Highway Bureau, called for residents in these rural townships to prepare themselves for possible evacuation and relocation. On the outlying island of Kinmen, a landslide triggered by heavy rain occurred on a road near Taiwu Mountain earlier that day, causing problems for motorists. Only three days ago, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) decided that the launch of an irrigation program for the second rice crop in southern Taiwan this year will be postponed until June 21, given that a drought in the southern counties is likely to persist through May. The MOEA's Water Resources Agency said it did not exclude the possibility of letting the rice paddies lie fallow if rainfall remains insignificant in southern Taiwan until mid-June. If the policy is implemented, it will be the first time in 30 years that paddies for the second crop in southern Taiwan have been left fallow, according to WRA officials. Even though this year's plum rain season began in early May, rainfall in southern Taiwan, particularly in the upstream catchment areas of the region's major reservoirs, has not been significant. Rainfall in the southern counties of Tainan and Kaohsiung has totaled only about 25 percent of the amounts recorded in previous years, the officials said. 