Rescue officials in Taiwan are searching for a cargo ship with nine crew members that has sunk off its southern coast. The Tanzania-flagged freighter had been off the southern port city of Kaohsiung when Taiwan was struck by Typhoon Gaemi.
The storm, which made landfall on Taiwan’s east coast, has killed three people and injured hundreds more, officials said. Before hitting Taiwan, Gaemi also brought relentless rains to large swathes of the Philippines, where eight people have died.
Taiwan's Coastguard Administration said the freighter had nine Myanmar nationals on board.
They added that three other foreign vessels had run aground during the typhoon. The storm has forced officials to cancel parts of the island's largest annual military drills, along with almost all domestic flights and more than 200 international flights.
Authorities warned on Wednesday that one of the biggest threats is the typhoon’s potential to cause landslides and flash flooding, especially on mountainsides destabilised by a large earthquake in April.
One of the three people killed in Taiwan was a motorist who was hit by a falling tree, authorities said. Another was crushed by an excavator when it overturned. More than 8,000 people across the island have been temporarily relocated by local authorities, reports said.
Gaemi made landfall in Taiwan around midnight on Wednesday (16:00 GMT), on the northeastern coast close to Yilan county. On Wednesday, the government declared a typhoon day, suspending work and classes across the island except for the Kinmen islands.
On Thursday, schools and offices remained closed, while flights to and from Taiwan have also been cancelled. The typhoon was originally expected to hit further north, but the mountains of northern Taiwan steered it slightly south towards the city of Hualien.
The typhoon is expected to weaken as it tracks over the mountainous terrain of Taiwan before re-emerging in the Taiwan Strait towards China.
A second landfall is expected in the Fujian province in southeastern China later on Thursday. The typhoon is expected to bring 300mm of rain to the region, which has already been experiencing flooding and persistent downpours.
Several rail operators in China have also suspended operations.
Predicted path of Typhoon Gaemi
Despite the very strong winds, officials say the main threat from Gaemi is from the huge amount of moisture it is carrying.
The island's Central Weather Administration has issued a land warning for all of Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities are warning that between one and two metres of rainfall can be expected across the central and southern mountains of the island in the next 24 hours.
In the capital Taipei, shelves in supermarkets were left bare on Tuesday evening as people stocked up ahead of expected price increases after the typhoon passes. The threat of the typhoon has also forced the government to call off parts of its planned week-long Hang Kuang military drills, which they had repeatedly said would be “the most realistic ever”.
Although it did not make landfall in the Philippines, Gaemi exacerbated the southwest monsoon and brought heavy rain to the country's capital region and northern provinces on Wednesday. Work and classes have been halted there while stock and foreign exchange trading were suspended.
Metro Manila, home to nearly 15 million people, was placed under a state of calamity as rivers and creeks overflowed. Footage circulating on social media showed small cars floating in chest-deep waters and commuters trapped on the roofs of sunken buses.
The state weather bureau said the rains, which are typical at this time of the year, could persist until Thursday.
— CutC by bbc.com
