Taiwan has hunkered down for the arrival of a strengthening Typhoon Gaemi, with financial markets shut, people getting the day off work and flights cancelled, while the military went on standby amid forecasts of torrential rain.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Gaemi, expected to be the strongest storm to hit Taiwan in eight years, is set to cross the northeast coast on Wednesday evening.
Weather authorities upgraded its status to a strong typhoon, packing gusts up to 227km/h near its centre.
After crossing the Taiwan Strait, it is likely to hit the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian late on Thursday afternoon.
"The next 24 hours will present a very severe challenge," Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai told a televised meeting of the emergency response centre.
In rural Yilan county, where the typhoon will first hit land, wind and rain gathered strength, shutting eateries as most roads emptied out.
Work and school were suspended across Taiwan, with streets almost deserted in the capital Taipei.
The government said more than 2000 people had been moved from sparsely populated mountain areas at high risk of landslides from the "extremely torrential rain".
Almost all domestic flights had been cancelled, along with 201 international flights, the transport ministry said.
All rail operations stopped from midday, with an abbreviated schedule for high-speed links between north and south Taiwan continuing to operate, it said.
However, TSMC, the world's largest contract chip maker and a major supplier to Apple, said it expected its factories to maintain normal production during the typhoon after it activated routine preparations.
Japanese media said the typhoon also cancelled all flights departing from and arriving at Miyako and Ishigaki in Japan's Okinawa prefecture, which lies in the storm's path.
The typhoon is expected to bring up to 1800 millimetres of rain to some mountainous counties in central and southern Taiwan, weather officials said.
Taiwan's defence ministry said it had put 29,000 soldiers on stand-by for disaster relief efforts.
The typhoon has severely curtailed this year's annual Han Kuang war games but they have not been cancelled, with scheduled live fire drills held on the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.
Gaemi is expected to bring heavy to very intense rain over vast swathes of China from Thursday, the water resources ministry warned.
Gaemi and a southwest monsoon brought heavy rain on Wednesday to the Philippine capital region and northern provinces, bringing work and schools to a halt, with stock and foreign exchange trading suspended. The storm killed 12 people.
While typhoons can be very destructive, Taiwan relies on them to replenish reservoirs after traditionally drier winters, especially in its south.
Australian Associated Press
