Taiwan issued a land warning and evacuated more than 3,000 people ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Fung-wong which is expected to bring large amounts of rain to the island's mountainous east coast.
Fung-wong is forecast to make landfall on Taiwan's southwestern coast around the major port city of Kaohsiung tomorrow, after powering through the Philippines as a much stronger system and killing 18 people.
Most deaths in the Philippines were caused by landslides in its mountainous northern Cordilleras, senior civil defence official Raffy Alejandro told a briefing, with two people reported missing and 28 injured.
The storm, which displaced 1.4 million people, had weakened into a severe tropical storm even as it began dumping rain on neighbouring Taiwan.
It was the second major typhoon to hit the Philippines in days, after Typhoon Kalmaegi last week rampaged through the archipelago's central islands on its way to killing 232 people, according to the latest figures.
The new death toll was released by national civil defence deputy administrator Rafaelito Alejandro.
In a phone interview, Alejandro told AFP that even "early recovery" efforts would take weeks.
"The greatest challenge for us right now is the restoration of lifelines, road clearing, and restoration of power and communication lines, but we are working on it."
In hardest-hit Catanduanes island, issues with the water supply could take up to 20 days to fix, he said.
The typhoon is expected to cross the bottom part of Taiwan and enter the Pacific Ocean along the coast of the sparsely populated eastern counties of Taitung and Hualien.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, writing on his Facebook page, said people should not head into the mountains or go to the coast or other potentially dangerous areas.
In September, 18 people died in Hualien in flooding unleashed by an earlier typhoon.
The government has already ordered evacuations in the town of Guangfu, the scene of those deadly floods, and said a total of 3,337 people in four counties and cites had been moved to safer areas.
Hualien closed schools and offices, as did the neighbouring county of Yilan.
The approaching storm intensified the northeast monsoon, triggering heavy rain, but up to 400 millimetres (nearly 16 inches) of rain is expected over the next 24 hours, government and weather officials there said.
President Lai Ching-te urged people to avoid mountainous areas, beaches and "other dangerous locations" to "get through this period safely".
The typhoon will not directly affect the northern city of Hsinchu, home to TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker.
Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful due to human-driven climate change. Warmer oceans allow typhoons to strengthen rapidly and a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which means heavier rainfall.
'Strongest typhoon'
In Cagayan, part of the Philippines' largest river basin, provincial rescue chief Rueli Rapsing said yesterday that a flash flood in neighbouring Apayao province had caused the Chico River to burst its banks, sending nearby residents scrambling for higher ground.
"We received reports ... that some people were already on their roofs," he said, adding most had been rescued.
Mark Lamer, 24, a resident of Cagayan's Tuao town, said it was the "strongest typhoon I have ever experienced".
"We didn't think the water would reach us. It had never risen this high previously," he said.
More than 5,000 people were safely evacuated before the overflowing Cagayan River buried the small city of Tuguegarao about 30 kms away.
"Tuguegarao is underwater now," Mr Rapsing said.
