Typhoon Soudelor is expected to unleash its fury on Taiwan within the next few hours.
CNN reported that the powerful storm will soon be bearing down on Taiwan’s eastern coast. It is expected to make landfall around 8:00 p.m. EST on Friday, which will be 8:00 a.m. local time on Saturday.
The typhoon has been wreaking havoc in the Western Pacific this past week. On Monday, it was categorized as a super typhoon and the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane with winds around 180 mph. It was later downgraded to the strength of a Category 3.
Nonetheless, Accuweather.com noted that it is still a very dangerous storm and is expected to bring heavy rain and damaging winds.
"Soudelor is a large storm in terms of the overall area of its tropical storm- and typhoon-force winds," said Meteorologist Anthony Sagliani. "It is likely that the entire island of Taiwan will see at least tropical storm-force winds [winds in excess of 60 kph/38 mph] and one-half of the island will see typhoon-force winds [winds of 119 kph/74 mph or greater]."
Hundreds have been evacuated at this time and authorities are urging residents to stay indoors until the storm passes.
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