Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in the central Philippines, where a fierce storm is lashing coastal areas with heavy wind and rain.

Typhoon Melor intensified rapidly over the weekend as it moved toward the eastern island of Samar.

By Monday morning, it wielded maximum sustained winds of about 205 kph (125 mph), the equivalent of a strong Category 3 hurricane.

The storm also brings the threat of torrential rainfall across the heart of the Philippine archipelago, including the densely populated region around Manila, the capital.

"This is going to produce significant amounts of rain," CNN weather anchor Derek Van Dam warned. "This part of the world means we could get landslides and flooding."

Typhoon Melor, known in the Philippines as Nona, was expected to clip the sparsely populated northern coast of Samar on Monday. It'll then move west toward more urban areas on the southern tip of Luzon, the country's largest island.

(Source: BBC)