Typhoon Champi hits Taiwan, killing one and injuring hundreds

Typhoon Champi has struck Taiwan, killing one person and injuring more than 500 others, as authorities warned of “destructive winds” and instructed people to stay indoors.

The storm swept past the island’s northeast on Friday, toppling trees, triggering brief flooding, disrupting power lines and forcing more than 5,000 people to evacuate from their homes.

Emergency crews were sent on Saturday to restore power to about 56,000 households still without electricity, authorities said. Most shops in northern and central Taiwan stayed shut for a second day as the storm edged away from the northeast and headed north.

Champi is heading towards China and Japan, forcing flight cancellations in the region.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications said 259 flights were cancelled, an improvement from Friday, when the number was almost 1,000.

Champi was briefly a super typhoon with winds of nearly 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour) but has since weakened. The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center on Friday reported maximum winds of 185km/h (115mph).

Worse is still expected to come on Saturday. Champi could drop up to 900mm (35 inches) of rain between Thursday and Saturday, with the northeast hit hardest, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. More than 400mm fell in Yilan County on Friday.

The forecaster also said the storm weakened overnight as it looped off the city of Yilan, which has received 650mm of rain since Thursday.

CWA forecaster Lu Kuo-chen said the typhoon could slow near the island’s northeastern tip, prolonging its impact.

Residents reacted differently.

“It was most terrifying around midnight,” a retired teacher surnamed Lin told the Reuters news agency as he inspected downed banana trees in his garden in Yilan. “It was a sleepless night. I haven’t seen anything like this in many years.”

Taipei resident Thomas Wang, 70, said the storm felt like something out of the horror film “Poltergeist”.

Martha Wang, a 55-year-old secretary, told the AFP news agency that she feared being “blown away” as her scooter shook on a bridge in New Taipei City.

While William Yu, a 55-year-old librarian, told AFP that the storm “wasn’t any stronger than other typhoons”.

About 8,400 households in Japan’s Okinawa islands were without power on Friday afternoon, according to the Okinawa Electric Power Company. The government said two people were injured in the typhoon in Japan’s southernmost prefecture.

Champi is forecast to hover near Okinawa and then China’s eastern coast before turning northeast, towards mainland Japan.

Chinese authorities warned of “strong winds and heavy rain” as the typhoon approaches mainland China’s east coast, the state-run broadcaster reported. It said parts of Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang could see heavy to torrential rain.

Some train services were suspended and tens of thousands of people evacuated in Shanghai.

El Nino weather event

Champi is the latest storm in a Pacific season supercharged by El Nino.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that El Nino, a natural cycle that warms the tropical Pacific, is heading off the charts.

“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.

It is expected to peak in December, with its impact lasting into 2027 and beyond.