Taiwan hit by typhoon Soudelor

Powerful Typhoon Soudelor is battering the island nation Taiwan, off the coast of China, with strong winds and heavy rain.

There were no immediate confirmed reports of further deaths early Saturday but local media said a man had been killed overnight by a falling commercial sign in the coastal town of Suao.

By noon, clearly as the off of Typhoon Soudelor gone by Taiwan, four individuals were absent and 64 hurt and countless tickets detained or offset, bases said.

Television footage trees uprooted and power poles toppled over, a moped being swept into the air by wind and shipping containers piled on top of each other at a port. “The storm will weaken but we expect more rain, particularly in southern Taiwan”, said Wang Shih-chien, an official with the island’s Central Weather Bureau.

The missing girl’s twin sister and mother died after the three of them and another girl who survived were swept away by strong waves at Suao Township’s Neipi beach. Maximum sustained winds reached 162 kph, with stronger gusts as fast as 198 kph recorded. Schools and offices were shut across Taiwan Saturday and at least 70 flights were canceled.

People get caught in heavy rain in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in China, as Typhoon Soudelor approaches.

A scooter passes a line of trees brought down by strong winds from…

As the storm moved west it snapped turbines and brought down 65-meter-high towers at a wind farm in Taichung, images on the Apple Daily website showed.

Some 1.87 million people were without electricity as of Saturday morning, according to state-run Taipower.

CNN Meteorologist Tom Sater warned that communities in low-lying areas of Taiwan’s eastern coast are at risk of a storm surge, flooding and landslides.

Many of those evacuated are from remote mountain villages in the east, where troops moved out residents Friday and helped secure their homes.

Fishing boats and workers wait in the shelter of Yilan’s harbor as Typhoon Soudelor approaches eastern Taiwan.

Authorities in southeast China have ordered the evacuation of about 158,000 people and ships back to port ahead of the typhoon, which was expected to hit Fujian province today.

The defense ministry had readied 100 shelters that could accommodate more than 45,000 people while around 35,000 soldiers were on standby for disaster relief.

Residents can be evacuated in response to the climate circumstances, the provincial flood management workplace added.