Typhoon Fanapi Increases Strength Off Coast of Taiwan

Typhoon Fanapi Increases Strength Off Coast of Taiwan

September 16, 2010, 11:54 PM EDT

(Updates with latest position in second paragraph.)By Stuart Biggs

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Typhoon Fanapi continued to strengthen as it hovered over the Pacific Ocean to the east of Taiwan, where it may make landfall in two days, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.

The typhoon was 730 kilometers (450 miles) east-southeast of Taipei at 8 a.m. local time today, the center said on its website. Fanapi’s sustained winds strengthened to 139 kilometers per hour, making it a Category 1 storm, the weakest on the five- step Saffir-Simpson scale.

Fanapi, the Micronesian name for sandy islands, was moving north-northwest at 7 kph and is forecast to strengthen today as it turns west toward Taiwan, the center said. Fanapi’s sustained winds may reach 167 kph before it makes landfall southeast of Taipei, on Sept. 19, the center said.

No warnings have yet been issued for Taiwan as the storm approaches, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.

Insured losses from Fanapi are expected to be below $200 million, according to Eqecat Inc., an Oakland, California-based catastrophe risk modeler.

Taiwan was battered by Typhoon Morakot in August 2009, the most destructive of last year’s western Pacific cyclone season, according to the center.

More than 650 people died in China and Taiwan, where Morakot dumped the most rain recorded in a 48-hour period, according to the island’s Central Weather Bureau.

--Editors: Aaron Sheldrick, John Viljoen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net.

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