Yilan, Taiwan: Taiwan hunkered down for the arrival of powerful Typhoon Gamey on Wednesday, with financial markets closed, people off work and flights cancelled, while the military stood by amid forecasts of heavy rain.
Gamey, expected to be Taiwan's strongest typhoon in eight years, is set to make landfall on the northeast coast on Wednesday evening, weather officials said.
They upgraded its status to a strong typhoon, packing gusts of up to 227kph near its center.
After crossing the Taiwan Strait, it is likely to hit the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian on 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 for the first time, winds and rain gathered strength, with most roads empty and restaurants closed.
“This could be the biggest storm in recent years,” fishing boat captain Hong Chun told Reuters, adding that Suao's Yilan port was packed with boats seeking shelter.
“It's charging right up the East Coast and if it makes landfall here, the damage will be massive.”
Work and schools were suspended across Taiwan, with the streets of the capital, Taipei, almost deserted.
According to the government, more than 2,000 people have been moved to safer places from the sparsely populated hilly areas, which are at high risk of landslides due to 'excessive torrential rains'.
Along with 201 international flights, almost all domestic flights have been cancelled, according to the Ministry of Transport.
All train operations will cease from mid-afternoon, with a shortened schedule for high-speed links between north and south Taiwan that will continue to operate, it added.
However, TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple, said it expected to maintain normal production during the storm after its factories activated regular preparations.
Soldiers standing by
The storm is expected to dump up to 1,800 mm of rain in some mountainous counties in central and southern Taiwan, weather officials said.
Taiwan's Ministry of Defense has said that 29,000 soldiers are on standby for disaster relief operations.
The typhoon has severely curtailed, but not canceled, this year's annual Han Kuang War Games, including live fire drills held on the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.
Gamey is expected to bring heavy to very heavy rains to large parts 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 along the northeastern borders with Russia and North Korea, it said on Wednesday.
The rain is expected to last till July 31 due to the storm's abundant moisture, it added.
Gaemi and a southwest monsoon brought heavy rains to the Philippines' capital region and northern provinces on Wednesday, halting work and schools with stocks and foreign exchange trading suspended. The storm killed 12 people.
Typhoons can be very destructive, with Taiwan relying on them to fill reservoirs after traditionally dry winters, especially in its south.
