Tens of thousands of homes lost power across Taiwan on Wednesday (September 14) as Super Typhoon Meranti hit the island, a storm seen as the strongest in the world so far this year, forcing schools and businesses to close and flights to be cancelled.
Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau warned that the Category 5 storm would threaten several southern and eastern cities, including Kaohsiung and Hualien, with strong winds, torrential rain and flooding.
Meranti, which grew in strength as it neared Taiwan, was carrying maximum winds of 216 km per hour (134 mph), meteorologists said. Fallen power cables and trees were among some of the early damage reported.
Companies and schools throughout southern Taiwan have closed and almost 1,500 residents have been evacuated, the Central Emergency Operation Center said in a statement.
Strong waves could be seen crashing over harbour fortifications in Taitung County, where a guidepost was pulled out of the pier and washed away.
"During past bigger typhoons we also had damages to the pier and the guidepost. But that the whole guidepost was pulled out (from the pier) and is nowhere to be seen, that is really very scary. We can even see the waves shooting over (the harbour wall), that is very scary. During recent ones (typhoons) we haven't seen waves that big," Huang Chien-ting, Taitung County commissioner, told reporters.
Shop fronts in Taitung City were closed shut with metal doors in an effort to keep flood water from the streets from entering the buildings, while local residents were sweeping water away from their belongings.
According to local media, nearly 300,000 households were without power. Most domestic flights have been cancelled, including all of those from Kaohsiung airport, where international flights were also severely affected.
Taiwan will feel the full force of the typhoon through Wednesday and into Thursday before the storm barrels into China, meteorologists said.
Meranti is expected to make landfall in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian on Thursday, where authorities were already cancelling train services and preparing to evacuate people, state media said.
Typhoon Meranti comes just over two months after the deadly typhoon Nepartak cut power, grounded flights and forced thousands to flee their homes across central and southern areas of Taiwan.
In 2009, Typhoon Morakot cut a swath of destruction through southern Taiwan, killing about 700 people and causing up to $3 billion of damage.
