YILAN, Taiwan: Taiwan was reeling from the arrival of a strengthening Typhoon Gaemi on Wednesday, with financial markets closed, people being given the day off work and flights cancelled, while the military remained on alert amid forecasts of torrential rains.
Gaemi, expected to be the strongest storm to hit Taiwan in eight years, is set to make landfall on the northeastern coast on Wednesday evening, weather authorities said.
They upgraded it to a strong typhoon, packing gusts of up to 227 km/h near its center.
After crossing the Taiwan Strait, it is likely to hit southeastern China's Fujian province late Thursday afternoon.
“The next 24 hours will present a very serious challenge,” Taiwanese Prime Minister Cho Jung-tai told a televised meeting of the emergency response center.
In rural Yilan County, where the typhoon will make landfall first, wind and rain picked up and closed restaurants as most roads emptied.
“This could be the biggest typhoon in recent years,” fishing boat captain Hung Chun told Reuters, adding that Yilan's Suao port was full of boats seeking shelter.
“It's heading straight for the east coast, and if it gets here, the damage would be massive.
Work and school were suspended in Taiwan, and the streets of the capital, Taipei, were almost deserted.
The government said more than 2,000 people had been evacuated from sparsely populated mountainous areas at high risk of landslides due to “extreme torrential rain”.
Almost all domestic flights were canceled along with 201 international flights, the transport ministry said.
All rail traffic will stop from midday, with a reduced timetable for the high-speed link between northern and southern Taiwan to continue operating, he added.
But TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple, said it expected its factories to maintain normal production during the typhoon after activating routine preparations.
THE SOLDIERS ARE ARRIVING
The typhoon is expected to bring up to 1,800mm of rain to some mountainous areas in central and southern Taiwan, meteorologists said.
Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said it had put 29,000 troops on standby for disaster relief.
The typhoon severely curtailed this year's annual Han Kuang War Games, but they were not canceled as scheduled live fire drills took place on the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.
Gaemi is expected to bring heavy to very intense rains to large areas of China from Thursday, the Ministry of Water Resources warned.
These are areas between the Pearl River basin in the south and the Songhua and Liao river basins on the northeastern border with Russia and North Korea, she said on Wednesday.
The rains are expected to last until July 31 and will be supported by the typhoon's abundant moisture, she added.
Gaemi and the southwest monsoon brought heavy rain to the Philippine capital region and northern provinces on Wednesday, halting work and schools and suspending trading in stocks and currencies. 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.
