Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had put more than 38,000 troops on standby, as Kaohsiung residents made their own preparations.
“It’s going to strike us directly. We must be fully prepared,” said fisherman Chen Ming-huang, as he tightened ropes on his boat in Kaohsiung harbour. “In the worst-case scenario the ropes might snap and my boat could drift away.”
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia and which has a large factory in neighbouring Tainan, said it had activated routine typhoon preparations and did not expect a significant impact to its operations.
Search for sailors
Off the southeast coast, Taiwan rescue helicopters lifted to safety 19 sailors from a listing cargo vessel travelling from China to Singapore, the government said. The sailors were taken to shelter on Taiwan’s remote Orchid Island.
The transport ministry said 88 domestic flights and 24 international ones had been cancelled, with boats to outlying islands also stopped. It added that all domestic flights — 234 in total — would stop on Wednesday.
The rail line connecting southern to eastern Taiwan was closed, though the north-south high speed line was operating as normal, albeit with enhanced safety checks for wind and debris.