Typhoon Odette batters extreme northern Luzon, heads for China

Super Typhoon Usagi, locally known as Typhoon Odette, the most powerful storm of the year, brought torrential rain and strong winds to the Philippines and Taiwan Saturday, uprooting trees and knocking out power as it barrelled towards Hong Kong. The typhoon battered the Batanes island group in the far north of the Philippines overnight before flooding a Taiwanese village and forcing Hong Kong's flag carrier Cathay Pacific to pre-emptively cancel all its flights. Usagi packed gusts of up to 220 kilometers an hour as it passed through the Luzon Strait between the Philippines and Taiwan, the Philippines' state weather bureau said. "The winds are very strong. I cannot even go out now," Batanes governor Vicente Gato told DZBB radio in Manila. "Many trees have been uprooted and we have no electricity," he said. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Center said the storm dumped up to 20 millimeters of rain an hour over a diameter of 800 kilometers on the country's main Luzon island. Several roads and bridges were rendered impassable by overflowing rivers or landslides, it said. Usagi made landfall on Itbayat, the Philippine island closest to Taiwan, toppling communication and power lines, uprooting trees, causing landslides and flooding rice and garlic farms.

"It's rare that we suffer casualties as a result of typhoons," Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, a former congressman for Batanes, told Reuters, saying the province had not experienced a powerful typhoon in 25 years.

"A flash flood occurred and trees were uprooted from the mountain and swept by roiling waters to the town. Many houses lost their roofs or were destroyed. Damage to crops is heavy and landslides were reported all around."

Sea and air travel have been suspended since Friday, with fishermen urged to bring their boats in due to strong winds and giant waves. Emergency workers were sent to the rescue of affected households in the province of nearly 16,000 people. About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines each year, on average. In 2011, Typhoon Washi killed 1,200 people, destroyed more than 10,000 homes and displaced 200,000 people. Strong winds in Taiwan In Taiwan's southern Pintung county, a storm flooded a remote village, forcing troops to evacuate dozens of people, the state Central News Agency said.

"I thought a tsunami was hitting...I've never encountered this before in my life," it quoted a 60-year-old woman who was scrambling to safety with her pet. Flights were cancelled and ferry services suspended, with schools and offices in many parts of the island closed, especially in the south and east, which were expected to bear the brunt of the storm, authorities said. Hotels and resorts in mountainous areas were closed due to fears of flooding and landslides. Coast guard personnel cordoned off the beaches at Kenting, a popular scenic spot in the south, as strong winds whipped up the sea. The defense ministry has deployed more than 1,600 soldiers to "high risk" areas and placed 24,000 others on standby. Nearly 2,500 people had already been evacuated, officials said, as the Central Weather Bureau warned people to expect up to 1.2 meters of rain. Hong Kong braces for typhoon In Hong Kong, officials issued a standby signal number one, the first in a five-step tropical cyclone warning system, with winds expected to strengthen later in the day and on Sunday. Flag carrier Cathay Pacific said in a statement it was suspending operations for two days from Sunday, as the territory braced for Usagi's impact. "It is anticipated that disruptions will continue on 23 September, Monday," the airline said in an advisory, as the Hong Kong observatory warned that weather "will deteriorate significantly" as the storm approached. Operators at the city's port, one of the busiest in the world, said they would cease work late Saturday. China's National Meteorological Center issued a red alert -- its highest level warning -- as it forecast gale-force winds and heavy rain. It said Usagi would affect the coastal areas of the provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian as it moved northwest. Nearly 23,000 fishing boats had earlier taken shelter in Fujian province ahead of the storm, state media reported Saturday, while more than 4,000 people living in coastal areas were evacuated. The region is regularly pummelled by tropical storms. Typhoon Bopha left a trail of destruction in the southern Philippines last year, triggering floods and landslides that left more than 1,800 dead and missing and displaced nearly one million people. In August 2009, Typhoon Morakot killed about 600 people in Taiwan, most of them buried in huge landslides in the south, in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the island in recent years. Hong Kong rarely suffers major loss of life as a result of tropical storms, although Typhoon Rose in 1971 killed 110 people in the city. — Agence France-Presse and Reuters reports