Meranti is closing in on eastern China’s Fujian Province. The storm is moving at about 11 miles per hour and is expected to reach China at 2 a.m. Thursday.
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Mainland emergency crews and officials braced for the deluge.
Meranti is expected to make landfall in Guangdong and Fujian provinces tomorrow, promoting evacuations and the cancelling of various train services.
Meranti was classed as Category 5, the strongest classification awarded by the Tropical Storm Risk tracker, before it made landfall on the mainland.
Li Mei, a meteorologist in eastern China’s Fujian, said that Meranti is among the strongest typhoon to hit China in recent years.
With a radius of 200 kilometers, Meranti had sustained winds of 208.8 kph with gusts of up to 262.8 kph, as of 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
The cyclone cut power to more than 500,000 homes as it roared through southern Taiwan on Wednesday, Focus Taiwan News Channel reported.
More than 370 domestic and global flights were canceled, train services were suspended and roads were closed.
Companies and schools in the affected cities have also closed and some 1,500 residents evacuated, it added, quoting the Central Emergency Operation Centre.
Local authorities issued flood warnings for cities and counties including Kaohsiung and Hualien as rainfall continued. Meranti is a much stronger storm than Nepartak was, meteorologists said.
Nevertheless, China is preparing for major destructions as authorities reported.Thewaves that are suspected to range very high from eight up to 13 meters could buffet South China Sea’s northeastern part.
In Taiwan, the peak of the storm is expected to last through to Thursday.
The NMEFC ordered ships to return to harbor and residents to stay indoors.
The Category 5 weather system was packing maximum winds of 134 miles per hour as it neared the island, meteorologists said. Back on July 7 of this year, a very similar typhoon, Nepartak, followed nearly the same path devastating the southern part of the island and areas of eastern China.
Taiwanese who were heading home for the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday said they hoped the storm would not scuttle their celebrations, which involve gatherings to eat mooncakes and barbecues. The flatter terrain – prone to storm surges and inland flooding – and higher population density often result in higher numbers of people killed or misplaced by the storm.
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