Typhoon Kammuri barrelled towards the Philippines on Monday, pushing tens of thousands of people into evacuation centres and prompting authorities to order a temporary closure of Manila's international airport as a safety precaution.
Kammuri was expected to make landfall late Monday or early Tuesday and then pass to the south of the capital, which is home to some 13 million people and is hosting thousands of athletes for the regional Southeast Asian Games.
Airport officials said they made the call based on the potency of the storm, which was forecast to come ashore with intense rains and sustained winds of up to 165 kilometres (100 miles) per hour as well as gusts of up to 230 kilometres per hour, forecasters said.