Typhoon Soudelor makes landfall in Taiwan

Doyle Rice | USA TODAY

Taiwan took a direct hit from Typhoon Soudelor early Saturday as the storm made landfall on the island nation's eastern shore, delivering a punishing one-two punch of heavy rain and high winds.

It made landfall just north of Xincheng Township, AccuWeather reported.

An 8-year-old girl and her mother died after being swept out to sea as Soudelor churned toward land. The storm forced thousands to flee and troops were placed on standby, officials told the South China News.

As of 2 a.m. local time Saturday (2 p.m. ET Friday), the typhoon packed sustained winds of 120 mph with gusts up to 150, making it the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, the typhoon warning center said.

The storm was expected to maintain Category 3 strength as it made landfall, AccuWeather said. "Residents of Taiwan should prepare for a direct strike by a major typhoon," AccuWeather meteorologist Dave Samuhel said.

As of Friday evening local time, Samuhel said Soudelor had produced a wind gust of 88 mph at Su'ao on the northeast coast of Taiwan. Winds of 101 mph were reported on Japan's westernmost inhabited island of Yonaguni-Jima, the Weather Channel reported.

A mountaintop in Datong Township in Taiwan's Yilan County has already been inundated with 30.43 inches of rain, AccuWeather meteorologist Anthony Sagliani said in a tweet.

Heavy rain — possibly as much as three feet — and howling wind gusts are the main threats from the storm, AccuWeather said.

More than 2,000 people relocated from Taiwan's outlying islands, popular with tourists, and thousands of troops helped more residents move from their homes into shelters, the South China News reported.

All of Taiwan's schools and offices were closed Saturday due to the typhoon, the China News said. Travel across the island was seriously hampered, with even high-speed trains staying inside through Saturday, the Taiwan News reported. Numerous other trains, flights and ferry services had also been canceled due to the storm.

The current forecast track takes Soudelor straight across central Taiwan, which is both mountainous and extremely landslide-prone, according to Dave Petley, a landslide expert at the University of East Anglia (U.K.).

"The extreme rainfall totals generated by typhoons combined with the steep mountain front in eastern Taiwan means that the landslide potential for Typhoon Soudelor is very high," Petley wrote in his blog. Heavy rain from Typhoon Morakot in 2009 caused catastrophic landslides in Taiwan that killed at least 500 people.

In addition to the potential for deaths and injuries from the storm, it's likely to be a $1 billion economic loss for Taiwan and China, meteorologist Steve Bowen of Aon Benfield said in a tweet. Typhoon Soudelor will be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan this year, the China Post said.

Soudelor reached its peak intensity late Monday with winds near 180 mph, making it the strongest storm anywhere on the planet this year, AccuWeather said. After hitting Taiwan, the typhoon will head for China by late Saturday or early Sunday local time.