Typhoon Champi leaves one dead and 527 injured in Taiwan, and turns north toward the Chinese coast

Champi hit Taiwan at its worst around midnight. The center of the storm turned south, hugged the Yilan coastline, then made a rare loop offshore before moving north and away, driving gusts of about 227 kilometers an hour in coastal areas, knocking down power lines and sending roof tiles flying. “It was most terrifying around midnight,” said a retired teacher surnamed Lin, inspecting banana trees blown down in his garden in Yilan. “It was a sleepless night. I haven’t seen anything like this in many years.”

Taiwan’s fire department said the death toll held at one, a man swept away by waves from the island of Liuqiu, with 527 people injured in the wind and torrential rain, as of October 24. Taipower said more than 288,000 homes lost electricity at some point during the storm, and most had been reconnected by Saturday. The transport ministry counted 242 flights canceled on Saturday, a sharp improvement on Friday, when the number was almost 1,000. A wide band of northern and central Taiwan, including Taipei, declared a second day of office and school closures on Saturday. In the capital there were downed trees and squally showers passing through.

Champi was at one point a super typhoon and one of the strongest storms in the Pacific this year. By Saturday it was weakening, still packing gusts of about 126 kilometers an hour near its center, and sat about 150 kilometers east of Taiwan, according to the Central Weather Administration. Its forecast track turns it north up the Chinese coast and eventually into southern Japan. Two people were injured in Okinawa, in Japan’s south, as the storm passed the region, and Japanese airlines canceled flights across the southern islands.

China spent Saturday getting ready. The emergency management ministry sent a team to the eastern province of Zhejiang and warned of strong winds and heavy rain through Sunday. It said 400 rescue workers and 600 pieces of equipment were ready and more than 41,000 firefighters were on emergency duty. In the coastal city of Taizhou, more than 3,800 fishing boats returned to harbor, fish farm workers were brought ashore, and 2,084 visitors were evacuated from islands. Authorities halted 25 offshore construction projects and suspended 18 passenger ferry routes. Some train services were suspended and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the Shanghai region. Taiwan is well prepared for typhoons, which keeps its casualty counts low. Autumn storms are less common than summer ones, and Champi made its own argument that the season does not end on a calendar date.