SHANGHAI, Aug 20 -- TYPHOON Sepat, the ninth tropical storm to hit Taiwan this year, killed five people on the island province, caused one serious injury and left one person missing, Xinhua news agency reported today.

Two men in north Hsinchu County were killed after being blown off of their bicycles by strong winds, according to local media. They were pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Torrential rains reduced visibility for drivers in east Chiayi and Hualien counties, causing three traffic accidents, leading to three deaths and one serious injury.

One person was reported missing after trying to feed chickens on a mountain that was the site of mud slides, local media said without elaborating on the location.

Sepat packed winds of up to 184 kilometers an hour and attacked eastern Taiwan with heavy rain and winds late on Friday.

The typhoon was 500 kilometers wide, covering an area even larger than Taiwan and putting the entire island in great danger, the Taiwan weather bureau said.

Vegetable prices rose during the weekend due to sharply short supply, resulting in a buying rush, Xinhua said.

The amount of vegetables traded yesterday in Taipei City's wet markets dropped by 55 percent, pushing prices up by as much as 20 percent.

The environmental protection bureau in Taipei cleaned out 940 tons of debris and garbage on the streets during the weekend, seven times than usual amount.

Sepat, which formed early last Monday east of Luzon in the Philippines, became a super typhoon at around 8pm on Wednesday.

The typhoon, named after a Malaysian freshwater fish, landed on Fujian Province's Quanzhou City at 2am yesterday.

By today, Sepat has killed at least 15 people on the Chinese mainland, a number that includes the death toll during a tornado it triggered in Zhejiang Province.