(CNN) Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in the Philippines as Typhoon Kammuri hit Luzon, the country's largest and most populous island.

Kammuri made landfall near the city of Gubat on Monday evening local time and has continued to strengthen. The storm has clocked maximum sustained winds near 215 kilometers per hour (130 mph), according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, making it a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

The eye of the typhoon, known locally as Tisoy, was set to move directly over Legazpi City in the next few hours, bringing damaging winds and torrential rainfall, which could lead to devastating mudslides. The typhoon will track across the Central Philippines and southern Luzon over the next 24 hours before emerging into the South China Sea early Wednesday morning.

Authorities in the Albay province, where Legazpi City is situated, began evacuating 100,000 people in anticipation of the storm, according to the government-run Philippines News Agency (PNA)

"We have to evacuate them and for those (residents) who are stubborn, I have directed the police to forcibly bring them to the nearest evacuation camps," Albay Gov. Al Francis Bichara said, PNA reported.

Typhoon #TisoyPH



Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal as of 8 am December 2, 2019 pic.twitter.com/xFxLpxMKf9 — PAGASA-DOST (@dost_pagasa) December 2, 2019

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