SAEDNEWS: Typhoon Champi struck Taiwan, claiming one life and injuring more than 500 people, as authorities warned of powerful winds and urged residents to remain indoors.
According to Saednews, The storm swept past northeastern Taiwan on Friday, bringing down trees, causing brief flooding, damaging power lines and forcing more than 5,000 people to flee their homes, Al Jazeera reported.
Emergency crews were deployed on Saturday to restore electricity to around 56,000 households that remained without power, officials said. Most shops in northern and central Taiwan remained closed for a second consecutive day as the storm moved away from the northeast and headed north.
Champi is moving towards China and Japan, prompting flight cancellations across the region.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications reported that 259 flights had been cancelled, a significant improvement from Friday, when nearly 1,000 flights were grounded.
Champi briefly intensified into a super typhoon, with winds approaching 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour), before weakening. On Friday, the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center recorded maximum sustained winds of 185km/h (115mph).
However, more severe weather was expected on Saturday. Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration (CWA) warned that Champi could bring up to 900mm (35 inches) of rainfall between Thursday and Saturday, with northeastern Taiwan expected to bear the brunt of the storm. More than 400mm of rain fell in Yilan County on Friday alone.
The weather agency also reported that the storm weakened overnight as it circled offshore near Yilan, a city that has received 650mm of rain since Thursday.
CWA forecaster Lu Kuo-chen said the typhoon could slow down near Taiwan’s northeastern tip, prolonging its effects on the island.
“It was most terrifying around midnight,” retired teacher Lin told Reuters while inspecting banana trees that had been knocked down in his garden in Yilan. “It was a sleepless night. I haven’t seen anything like this in many years.”
Thomas Wang, a 70-year-old Taipei resident, said the storm felt like a scene from the horror film Poltergeist.
Martha Wang, a 55-year-old secretary, told AFP that she feared being “blown away” as her scooter shook while she crossed a bridge in New Taipei City.
However, William Yu, a 55-year-old librarian, told AFP that the storm “wasn’t any stronger than other typhoons”.
In Japan’s Okinawa islands, approximately 8,400 households were without electricity on Friday afternoon, according to Okinawa Electric Power Company. The government reported that two people had been injured by the typhoon in Japan’s southernmost prefecture.
Forecasters expect Champi to linger near Okinawa and then along China’s eastern coast before turning northeast towards mainland Japan.
Chinese authorities have warned of “strong winds and heavy rain” as the storm approaches the country’s eastern coastline, state-run broadcaster reports said. Parts of Jiangsu province, Shanghai and Zhejiang province could experience heavy to torrential rainfall.
Some train services were suspended, while tens of thousands of residents were evacuated in Shanghai.
Champi is the latest powerful storm to develop during a Pacific typhoon season intensified by El Niño.
On Wednesday, the United Nations warned that El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that warms the tropical Pacific Ocean, was approaching unprecedented levels.
“The current El Nino event could be unprecedented in strength. Literally off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades,” said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
The phenomenon is expected to reach its peak in December, with its effects potentially continuing into 2027 and beyond.
