Hong Kong’s airlines have moved most of their fleets out of the city to avoid damage from Super Typhoon Ragasa, Reuters reported.

About 80 per cent of aircraft belonging to the territory’s four main carriers have been relocated to airports in Japan, China, Cambodia, Europe and Australia, according to Flightradar24 tracking data. The Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre said the majority of private jets had also left ahead of the storm.

Earlier, passengers were stuck at the airport as hundreds of flights were cancelled. Cathay Pacific cancelled more than 500 flights and said it was “positioning some of our aircraft away from Hong Kong” with a gradual resumption expected from Thursday into Friday. Greater Bay Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines confirmed they had also sent planes to other airports as a precaution.

Taiwan’s authorities say 15 people have been confirmed dead after a lake burst and sent a wall of water through the town of Guangfu during Super Typhoon Ragasa, revising the death toll up by one.

The fire department revised down the number of people missing after the typhoon in Guangfu, however, from more than 150 to just 17.

Sirens rang out in Guangfu on Wednesday as police warned of fresh flooding in the eastern Taiwan town devastated earlier when a barrier lake burst.

Authorities said much of the lake’s water had already been released and heavy rain was easing, but fears remained.

“We will not return until the overflow is finished or the risk of it bursting is reduced. It’s too dangerous,” said a woman surnamed Tsai from an elementary school shelter told Reuters news agency.

The deluge has already swept away a major bridge and left cars and scooters strewn across muddy streets. About 5,200 people, 60 per cent of the town’s population, sheltered on upper floors of their homes, while others left to stay with relatives.

The government said the lake released about 60 million tonnes of water, the equivalent of 36,000 Olympic-sized pools. Soldiers have been distributing supplies door-to-door in armoured vehicles as rescuers continue to search.

The Hong Kong Observatory increased its storm warning this morning from No 8 to No 10, its highest, as hurricane force winds and tall waves lashed the city.

The warning meant people were supposed to stay inside away from windows and doors and remain in place “until the danger is over”.

Maximum gusts of 206kmph were reported at Ngong Ping plateau, a top tourist destination, while the observatory expected winds of up to 189kmph elsewhere.

The eye of the storm has now passed to the west beyond Hong Kong’s coast and the impacts of the storm are dying down there, though flight disruptions are expected to continue until at least Thursday morning.

China has evacuated 1.9 million people so far in Guangdong province, local authorities say.

The province is an economic powerhouse and home to more than 125 million people.

The national weather agency forecast the super typhoon would make landfall between the cities of Yangjiang and Zhanjiang this evening.

Schools, factories and transit services were suspended in about a dozen cities.

Taiwan premier Cho Jung-tai has called for an inquiry into what went wrong with evacuation orders in an eastern county where flooding from a breached mountain lake killed 14, as fresh warnings spooked residents.

Sub-tropical Taiwan, frequently hit by typhoons, normally has a well-oiled disaster mechanism that averts mass casualties by moving people out of potential danger zones quickly.

But many residents in Guangfu, an inundated town in the beauty spot of Hualien thronged by tourists, said there was insufficient warning when the lake overflowed during yesterday’s torrential rains brought by Super Typhoon Ragasa.

The premier said the immediate priority was to find 129 people still missing, but questions remained.

“For the 14 who have tragically passed away, we must investigate why evacuation orders were not carried out in the designated areas,” he told reporters in Guangfu.

“This is not about assigning blame, but about uncovering the truth.”

The barrier lake, formed by landslides triggered by earlier heavy rain in the island’s sparsely populated east, burst its banks to send a wall of water into Guangfu.

Super Typhoon Ragasa is nearing the Chinese coast after battering Taiwan and the Philippines, as it continues to maintain its monstrous strength.

The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 200kmph and gusts of up to 250kmph early this morning, according to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The storm’s eye was located about 130km south-southwest of Hong Kong as it continued its churn along the southern Chinese coastline at 17kmph.

Forecasts suggest Ragasa will weaken gradually as it heads west towards the coast but gale- to storm-force winds are expected to persist through the day.