Taiwan's weather bureau has urged residents to prepare for Typhoon Matsa, which it said could hit the island today or tomorrow, bringing strong winds and heavy rains and triggering landslides.
   
Matsa, the name of a fish in Laos, was 560 kilometers east-southeast of Taiwan's southernmost tip of Oluanpi on Wednesday morning, the bureau said.
   
With a radius of 250 kilometers, it was moving northwest at 15 kilometers per hour, it said.

Residents in low-lying areas were urged to guard against floods while those in mountainous regions were told to watch out for mudslides.
   
Matsa is expected to sweep through Fujian or Zhejiang after Taiwan, according to forecasters.
   
In August last year, Typhoon Aere claimed 24 lives when strong winds and downpours touched off mudslides, burying an entire village in the mountains of northern Hsinchu County.
   
(Shenzhen Daily August 4, 2005)