TAIPEI, Taiwan, 25 Oct (From Reuters) - Howling winds and torrential rain have battered Taiwan as a late-season typhoon struck the island, killing at least one person and forcing schools and businesses to close. Hardest hit was the island's northeast where huge seas closed a major port and heavy rain triggered floods. In the capital Taipei, gale-force winds forced buildings to sway so much some residents thought there had been an earthquake. Typhoon Nock-Ten had weakened a little by late Monday and had sustained winds of up to 130 kilometres. The eye was 80 kilometres north of Taipei at 0800 GMT and the storm was spinning northeast at 20 kilometres per hour towards Japan, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said.

A television reporter drowned in a flash flood in Taipei county, and a rescue worker is missing after being swept away by raging waters, Taiwan's disaster recovery centre said. A fisherman, whose small raft flipped over in high seas off the north eastern coast on Sunday, is also missing. "The wind was so strong that it caused my truck to flip over on the highway," said a driver in the northern port city of Keelung. "I've never seen anything like it." Television footage showed his trailer truck lying upside down next to two other overturned trucks. The storm had churned up the east coast and drenched the entire island, and could dump up to 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) of rain on some northern mountainous areas, prone to landslides due to soil loosened by over-development. Waves at least 14 meters (46 feet) high pounded the north eastern coast, forcing Keelung port, Taiwan's second largest, to close. Some international and domestic flights were also cancelled by Nock-Ten, which means bird in Laotian. Flash floods submerged some streets to waist levels in the north, though waters had mostly receded by late afternoon. Another driver who went to rescue his truck from a car park was forced to climb onto its roof to escape floodwaters. "The water rose so quickly that I couldn't get out," he said.

Storm departing

With gusts of 180 kilometres per hour whipping around high-rises in Taipei earlier on Monday, some residents thought an earthquake had struck but the weather bureau said the winds were to blame. Taiwan, which lies on a seismically active stretch of the Pacific Basin, is prone to tropical storms though a typhoon this late in the year is unusual. At least 53 people in Taiwan have been killed by storms this year, with many buried by mudslides or drowned in flash floods. Another 30 people are listed as missing by the government. "Wind speeds are gradually weakening and we'll be seeing lesser rain," Joey Lee, a forecaster at the bureau, told Reuters. "The typhoon is leaving Taiwan soon and we should be able to lift the land warning by early tomorrow morning at the earliest." Businesses and schools in Taipei, which houses the stock and foreign exchanges, and the northern and eastern regions were closed on Monday but expected to re-open on Tuesday. The shopping mall in the world's tallest building, Taipei 101, was also closed for most of the day. The 508-meter tower was built to withstand the strongest typhoon in a 100-year cycle, or gale-force winds of 216 kilometres per hour

Taiwan's main refiner, Chinese Petroleum Corp, said its operations were unaffected by the typhoon. Its three refineries are shielded by the island's central mountain range.

This Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) Level 1 image, shows Typhoon Nock-ten (centre left border image) that hit Taiwan with powerful winds and heavy rain Monday, killing three people, leaving two missing and disrupting road and air traffic.