Early Thursday typhoon Meranti landed in Xiamen city, East China’s Fujian province, causing extensive damage.
The world’s strongest typhoon so far this year has also been monitored as the strongest one hitting southern Fujian Province since the local meteorological records were kept in 1949.
The winds shattered windows on high buildings, causing disruptions of tap water supplies in many communities in Xiamen city.
Reports say that Meranti has downgraded from super typhoon status when slamming into Fujian. The storm reached land as the equivalent of a category 2 or 3 hurricane.
Hours before hitting Fujian, Meranti brought ferocious winds, drenching rain and pounding waves to Taiwan on Wednesday, even though the center of the storm slid just south of the island nation. Wind and rain knocked out power to nearly 200,000 homes, forced schools and businesses to close and canceled flights.
