By DPA,
Taipei : Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou Saturday instructed local authorities to prepare for evacuations and to secure areas against Typhoon Fanapi, which was gaining strength as it approached the island.
The army was standing by in Hualien on the east coast, where Fanapi was expected to make landfall early Sunday, the first typhoon to hit Taiwan directly this year.
By 9 a.m. (0100 GMT), the eye of Fanapi was 450 km east Taiwan, and heading west at 15 km per hour, the Central Weather Bureau said.
The storm was packing centre winds of 155 km per hour and gusts of up to 191 km per hour.
The bureau issued a land warning Saturday, after issuing a sea warning late Friday. The bureau expects the typhoon’s circle to reach Taiwan late Saturday, and typhoon itself to hit land early Sunday.
In August last year, Typhoon Morakot battered the island for two days, leaving about 650 people dead and causing damage estimated at $3.3 billion in one of the worst storms of recent years.