Taiwan cancelled more than 100 flights and shut schools and offices today as the island braced for a direct hit from Super Typhoon Nepartak, the first major tropical storm of the season.
The typhoon was packing gusts of up to 245 kilometres an hour as it rumbled towards the eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung, where it is expected to make landfall early tomorrow, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.
At 1000 GMT, the typhoon was 210 kilometres east-southeast of Taitung.
“As the typhoon has been slowing its pace, we now forecast it could make landfall sometime between 5:00 am and 6:00 am Friday,” an official at the bureau told AFP.
The storm is expected to dump torrential rain on the whole island with mountainous areas forecast to be deluged with up to 900 millimetres, potentially triggering landslides that have in the past claimed hundreds of lives.
Residents should “keep an eye out on possible landslides, falling rocks, flash water flooding,” the bureau said in a statement.
All fishing boats have been called back to port as waves - as high as 14 metres, according to TV reports - batter the eastern coast.
President Tsai Ing-wen said preventative evacuation would play a significant role in managing fall-out from the storm, while defence minister Feng Shih-kuan said his ministry has “prepared for the worst”.