(Bloomberg) — Typhoon Krathon moved toward Taiwan’s west coast and is expected to make landfall around noon local time, with the stock exchange shutting a second day and thousands of people without power.
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Krathon currently has maximum sustained winds of 126 kilometers (78 miles) per hour, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration. The storm has slowed and weakened as it approached the island, dumping heavy rain across a widespread area of the south west including Kaohsiung city.
The typhoon is expected to make landfall “this morning to noon,” Wu Wan-hua, a forecaster with CWA, said at a briefing on Thursday. Krathon is equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
Taipei authorities announced late Wednesday that schools and offices would remain closed, even as Taiwan’s capital has been relatively unscathed so far compared to the south. Heavier rains are forecast for the city, its nearby mountains, and neighboring New Taipei City through Friday morning.
More than 5,000 households are currently without power as of Thursday morning, according to the state-owned Taiwan Power Co. Some high speed rail operations have also been suspended.
The two-day stock market closure is only the third since 2016 and it follows a similar shutdown in July when Typhoon Gaemi hit the island. Several Taiwanese companies issued statements to the stock exchange that cash dividend payments may be delayed because the typhoon has shut offices.
The slow-moving storm has brought heavy rain to Taiwan all week, pummeling the industrial and shipping hub of Kaohsiung and the historic former capital of Tainan. The risk of floods and landslides has forced the evacuation of more than 9,000 people, with 102 injured, two missing and two dead, as of Wednesday evening, according to authorities.
There is some uncertainty on what happens to the storm after it crosses the coast. Taiwanese authorities predict the system will continue moving slowly north over the island, eventually weakening to a tropical depression. However, Japan’s weather bureau sees the storm boomeranging south, doubling back to hit Kaohsiung before exiting into the South China Sea.
Another forecaster — the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center — sees the storm initially moving north over the island before veering west into the Taiwan Strait and tracking toward Hong Kong.
–With assistance from Miaojung Lin, Chien-Hua Wan and Adrian Kennedy.
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