Southern Taiwan Reels from Super Typhoon Meranti’s Devastation

Port staff check the damaged bridge cranes in Kaohsiung, southeast China's Taiwan. Kaohsiung Port saw facilities damage due to the effect of Typhoon Meranti, Sept. 15.

The storm, registered as a super typhoon before losing strength after sweeping across southern Taiwan, made landfall in the early hours near the major city of Xiamen. Dozens of flights and train services have been canceled, state television said, disrupting travel at the start of the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

Pictures on state media showed flooded streets, fallen trees and crushed cars in Xiamen as rescuers in boats evacuated people. About 320,000 homes were without power in Xiamen. Across the whole of Fujian province, where Xiamen is located, 1.65 million homes had no electricity.

A man rides through a flooded street after Typhoon Meranti made landfall on southeastern China, in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China.

Tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated as the storm approached and fishing boats called back to port. One person died and 38 were injured in Taiwan, the Central Emergency Operation Centre there said, as the typhoon hit the southern part of the island on Wednesday.

Meranti was a Category 5 typhoon, the strongest classification awarded by Tropical Storm Risk storm tracker, before it made landfall on the mainland and has since been downgraded to Category 2.