Taiwan counted the cost on Saturday after Typhoon Champi, briefly a super typhoon this week, sideswiped the island’s northeast, killing one man, injuring hundreds and blacking out more than 340,000 homes.
The Central Weather Administration called off its land warning at 2:30 p.m. as Champi, by then downgraded to a tropical storm, curved north away from the island in the direction of the Chinese coast and southern Japan. Forecasters do not expect the center to reach the mainland.
- Key Point: A man died after huge waves swept him away at Liuqiu, an islet off Pingtung County; injury tallies ranged from 527, cited by the fire department, to 616, logged by the Central Emergency Operation Center.
- Key Point: Of the 9,027 damage reports logged, 3,287 involved fallen trees, including 1,282 in Taipei.
- Key Point: Flight cancellations totaled 259, the transport ministry said, against almost 1,000 the previous day.
- Key Point: More than 41,000 firefighters were placed on emergency duty in China and an emergency team was sent to Zhejiang province.
A midnight loop off Yilan and gusts of 227 km/h
Champi’s center skirted Yilan County early on Saturday, drifted south around midnight, crept along the shoreline, swung back out to sea and then set a course north. Some coastal districts recorded gusts close to 227 km/h, which felled power lines and stripped tiles from rooftops.
By 5 p.m. the storm was about 320 km northeast of Taipei, tracking north-northeast at 14 to 21 km/h, carrying top sustained winds of 101 km/h and gusts close to its core of about 126 km/h.
Rain proved just as disruptive. Between Thursday and 4 p.m. Saturday, 650 mm fell in Yilan, the highest total on the island; Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties both exceeded 500 mm, and Taipei recorded 469.5 mm. Close to 5,000 residents were moved out of landslide-prone districts.
In Yilan, a retired teacher surnamed Lin looked over the banana trees flattened in his garden and said the hours after midnight were the worst of it.
It was most terrifying around midnight. It was a sleepless night. I haven’t seen anything like this in many years.
Repairs, closures and a second day off
Taipower crews worked through the day, restoring supply to roughly 80 percent of the homes hit by morning; about 22,000 customers remained cut off at 5 p.m., with completion targeted for 11 p.m.
A second day of closures kept workplaces and classrooms shut across Taipei and much of northern and central Taiwan, with most shops dark. The Danjiang Bridge in New Taipei, shut on Friday afternoon as a precaution, reopened at 5 p.m.
Wuu Woan-hwa of the Central Weather Administration said the coast would stay dangerous as the system pulled away.
Although the typhoon is gradually departing, we would like to remind the public that coastal areas will still experience swells and strong wind gusts.
Zhejiang, Shanghai and Okinawa next in line
Beijing dispatched an emergency management team to Zhejiang and warned of strong winds and heavy rain into Sunday, with 400 rescue workers, 600 pieces of equipment and more than 41,000 firefighters on duty. Reports on state media said Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang could face downpours ranging from heavy to torrential, while Shanghai halted some rail services and moved tens of thousands of residents to safety.
In Taizhou, upwards of 3,800 fishing vessels made for port, offshore fish-farm staff were brought ashore and 2,084 visitors to the city’s islands were moved out, while work stopped at 25 construction sites and 18 ferry routes were suspended. Japan’s southern islands felt the storm first: power was knocked out for some 8,400 Okinawa households on Friday, two people were hurt there, and visitors on Ishigaki waited for air services to restart.
Champi caps a Pacific season supercharged by El Nino, which the UN said on Wednesday is going off the charts; it should peak in December, with effects into 2027. Celeste Saulo, the World Meteorological Organization’s secretary-general, described its scale bluntly.
The current El Nino event could be unprecedented in strength. Literally off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades.
Forecaster Lin Ping-yu said outer bands would still bring scattered rain to areas north of Miaoli overnight and early on Sunday, with most of Taiwan turning sunny to partly cloudy on Sunday and Monday, though Hualien and Taitung could see heavier downpours.
Pre-emptive shutdowns, mass evacuation and swift grid repairs are a well-worn drill in Taiwan, and they have long kept typhoon deaths low. Attention now turns to the mainland coast and Japan’s southern islands, where harbors, ferry services and air routes are already suspended.