MANILA, Sept. 22 -- Hundreds of families sheltered in schools and evacuation centres today as heavy rains and gale-force winds from Super Typhoon Ragasa lashed the northern Philippines and southern Taiwan.

The typhoon, which is gaining strength as it proceeds on a collision course with southern China, was expected to make landfall over the Philippines' Babuyan Islands by around midday.

The sparsely populated islands lie about 740 kilometres south of Taiwan in the Luzon Strait.

As of 8am (0000 GMT/8am Malaysian time), maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometres per hour were reported at the storm's centre, with gusts reaching up to 265 kph as it moved toward the archipelago nation, the national weather service said.

"We are now experienc...