As millions of people in Taiwan prepared for the typhoon, which struck at around 13:40 local time (04:40 GMT), schools, offices, and stores were all shuttered on Thursday.
Kong-rey is a Category 4 storm, barely short of being a super typhoon, with a diameter of over 500 kilometers and packing gusts of about 33 km/h (20 mph) at its center.
Along with Taiwan’s stock market, hundreds of planes and ferries have also been halted.
Such a large storm arriving so late in the year is not common. As per Taiwan’s weather office, the typhoon season.
All of the most powerful typhoons over the past 80 years have passed through that window. However, Taiwan was struck by two powerful storms in October this year, including super typhoon Krathon, which killed four people and injured over 700 more.
One man in Hualien told a television reporter, “I’m 70 years old, and I’ve never seen a typhoon hit this late in the year.”
Since July, ocean scientists have recorded sea surface temperatures that are almost record highs, indicating that there is more heat energy on the ocean surface to fuel storm systems.
