Typhoon Hanna (international name: Haikui) continued to intensify as it approached southern Taiwan, the state weather bureau PAGASA said on Sunday.
At 10 a.m., Hanna was located 220 kilometers north northeast of Itbayat, Batanes, with maximum sustained winds of 155 kilometers per hour near the center and gustiness of up to 190 km/h.
It was traveling westward at 10 km/h.
Batanes and the Babuyan Islands remained under Signal No. 1 as of 11 a.m.
”The Southwest Monsoon currently enhanced by Hanna will bring occasional to monsoon rains over the western portion of Luzon and Antique in the next three days,” PAGASA said.
Hanna is expected to cross the rugged terrain of southern Taiwan on Sunday night and will weaken as a result, PAGASA said.
The typhoon may emerge over the Taiwan Strait and exit the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) late Sunday evening or early Monday morning, it added.
Meanwhile, thousands of people were evacuated in Taiwan ahead of Haikui, with hundreds of flights cancelled and businesses closed as authorities prepared Sunday for the first tropical storm to directly hit the island in four years.
Haikui — which had already brought heavy rains by Sunday morning — is expected to make landfall by 5:00 pm (0900 GMT) in Taitung, a mountainous county in lesser-populated eastern Taiwan.
The storm was around 180 kilometres (110 miles) east of Taiwan just before 9:00 am, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said in a press conference.
“It is expected to pose a considerable threat to most areas in Taiwan with winds, rains and waves,” said deputy director Fong Chin-tzu, urging to public to be “on guard”.
“It has gathered some strength since yesterday,” he said, adding that the storm would move west to the Taiwan Strait by Monday.
Schools and businesses in the southern and eastern parts of the island were closed Sunday.
More than 200 domestic flights were cancelled.
“I remind the people to make preparations for the typhoon and watch out for your safety, avoid going out or any dangerous activities,” Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said.
Authorities said they had evacuated more than 2,800 people across seven cities — the majority of them from the mountainous county of Hualien, which neighbours Taitung.
The streets of Hualien were deserted Sunday morning, battered by unrelenting torrential rain, while a fishing harbour in northeastern coastal Yilan county saw towering waves slam against the shore.
The military had mobilised soldiers and equipment — such as amphibious vehicles and inflatable rubber boats — around the parts of Taiwan where Haikui is expected to have the heaviest impact.
The last major storm to hit Taiwan was Typhoon Bailu in 2019, which left one person dead.
Haikui is expected to be less severe than Saola, which bypassed Taiwan but triggered the highest threat level in nearby Hong Kong and southern China before it weakened into a tropical storm by Saturday.
with reports from Carl Santos and Agence France-Presse
