Typhoon Gaemi Devastates Taiwan and Heads Towards China

Typhoon Gaemi struck northern Taiwan, leading to three fatalities, extensive flooding, and significant damage. The storm severed power for half a million homes and cancelled numerous flights. It is now advancing towards China, prompting heavy rain warnings and evacuations in coastal regions of Fujian and Zhejiang.

Typhoon Gaemi swept through northern Taiwan on Thursday, killing three people, triggering flooding, and sinking a freighter before barreling west across the Taiwan Strait towards China, where it is expected to dump more torrential rain. Gaemi made landfall around midnight (1600 GMT Wednesday) on the northeastern coast of Taiwan in Yilan county. It is the strongest typhoon to hit the island in eight years and was packing gusts of up to 227 kph (141 mph) before weakening, according to the Central Weather Administration.

As of 17:00 p.m. (0900 GMT), Gaemi had crossed the Taiwan Strait and was looming over China's coastal Fujian province. Gaemi would be the biggest typhoon to hit China's eastern seaboard this year, with its spiralling cloud-bands spanning most of the Western Pacific Ocean and fuelling severe weather from the Philippines to Japan's Okinawa islands.

In Taiwan, the storm cut power to around half a million households, though most are now back online, utility Taipower said. Some parts of southern Taiwan are expected to have recorded accumulated rainfall of 2,200 mm (87 inches) since Tuesday.