The authorities in mainland China have issued this year's first red alert for parts of the southern southeastern coast.

The storm hit Taiwan on Wednesday, killing three people and forcing thousands to evacuate.

As we heard, the Philippine Coast Guard has found the body of a missing sailor from an oil tanker that sank in Manila Bay.

Our correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes is in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.

Well, as you can probably see, it is still raining here in Taipei.

It's been raining solidly for the last 24 hours, but also the winds have now dropped in the last couple of hours.

Very strong winds this morning.

Now, the storm has pretty much passed in terms of winds off into the Taiwan Strait, now heading for the southeast coast of China.

It sat over the island for most of the night.

It slowed right down and did a big circle over Taiwan and moved very slowly over the mountains last night, and that means there was a huge amount of rainfall, and that has caused extensive flooding in the east and south of the island.

And sadly, yes, as you say, several people have been reported as being killed from falling trees and falling masonry during those very high winds last night.

But other than that, the damage fortunately appears to have been limited.

As I say, quite extensive flooding, but in terms of structural damage, that appears to be fairly limited, and most places appear to have come through this storm fairly unscathed.

We have now got reports of a ship off the south coast of Taiwan sinking, and the crew of that ship is currently missing.

That's what the Coast Guard is telling us.

So there is a rescue operation ongoing off the south coast of Taiwan to try and find the crew of that ship.

But other than that, the storm has now mainly passed and is heading for the southeast coast of China.

Well, let's speak to Jan Kamenzind Broomby now, journalist based in Taipei.

Jan, welcome to you.

What's the latest that you can tell us, this information coming in from the Philippine Coast Guard about this oil tanker?

That's right.

That information coming in only in the last few minutes about the fact that the Philippine had these fissures that were thought to be missing on this ship, I should say, the sailors.

We didn't know actually before, they weren't specifying whether they thought that this ship had been impacted by the typhoon.

It seems now that the Coast Guard is suggesting that this has come as a result of those wild and choppy waters that we've been seeing as a result of the typhoon that spread.

It didn't actually make landfall in the Philippines, but still had a big impact before shifting up, picking up strength and making landfall over Taiwan in the last 24 hours.

And Jan, what more can you tell us about the latest impact this typhoon has had where you are?

Well, as Rupert was saying, the impact in Taipei has thankfully been relatively small.

You walk around, the streets are far emptier than you would imagine.

They're having what's called a typhoon day.

That means schools are closed, shops are closed, businesses are largely closed, although some have remained open.

You can see people have boarded up their windows to protect them from any kind of damage.

But the real focus now is shifting away from Taipei and it's shifting down towards the south and towards the east of Taiwan's island.

There we've seen significant levels of rainwater and flooding even in the city of Kaohsiung in the south.

Social media videos showing water flooding down into car parks and people trudging through the streets that once were filled with cars, now filled with floodwater.

And as Rupert was adding there, there has been a ship that we believe has sunk essentially with nine Myanmar nationals on board.

Those nationals missing haven't been heard from since the distress signal that they sent out.

Three other ships also run aground off the coast, off of the southern coast of Taiwan and the hopes from the local Coast Guard and local governments that they will be able to rescue the people on those ships very soon.

OK, Yan, thank you for updating us there from Taipei.