Taiwan has lifted warnings about Typhoon Malakas, which was now moving towards Japan, but urged people to remain alert due to heavy rain, local media reported yesterday.
Forecasters at the Central Weather Bureau said that people in mountain and coastal areas in northern and eastern parts of Taiwan should stay alert to heavy rain, state-run Central News Agency reported.
Typhoon Malakas brought heavy rain to northern Taiwan on Saturday, disrupting transportation in some areas.
In the capital Taipei, cumulative rainfall exceeding 420mm was measured, the bureau said.
As of morning yesterday, the eye of the storm was approximately 290km to the northeast of Taiwan, moving in a northerly direction toward Japan at a speed of 15kph, the bureau said.
“Malakas is to significantly affect weather in Japan on Tuesday. In Taiwan, however, people in coastal areas still have to stay alert because big waves higher than four metres remain today on the sea north of Taiwan,” bureau forecaster Wu Wan-hua said.
Train services in northern Taiwan have returned to normal yesterday. 
However, some international and domestic flights were still being cancelled or delayed.
Approximately 2,900 residents were evacuated but no injuries were reported, the Central Emergency Operation Centre said.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Typhoon Meranti, the strongest typhoon to hit China in nearly 70 years, has reached 28, state news said yesterday, days after the storm crashed into the country’s coastline.
Heavy rains and winds up to 170kph (105mph) whipped eastern Fujian province late last week, flooding streets and knocking over trees, billboards and power lines.
The official Xinhua news agency described the storm as the world’s strongest typhoon this year and the worst to hit the region since records began in 1949.
Fifteen remain missing, Xinhua said, adding that Xiamen city’s transportation and power supply continued to be “spotty”.
More than 10,000 workers were clearing up debris from the storm which uprooted more than 3,000 trees and destroyed roads and walls, it said.
Flooding also destroyed an 871-year-old bridge that was protected heritage site in Yongchun county, Xinhua reported on Friday.
The typhoon, which had earlier skirted the southern tip of Taiwan, made landfall in Xiamen early on Thursday.
At one point more than 3.2mn homes had their electricity cut off and water supplies for many communities in Xiamen were disrupted, it added.