Storm that peaked as the world's strongest of 2026 kills one, injures hundreds in Taiwan, pushes toward China's coast

A storm that meteorologists spent more than a week tracking as the most powerful on the planet this year swept across Taiwan and the southernmost islands of Japan over the weekend, killing one person, injuring more than 600 and cutting electricity to hundreds of thousands of households before weakening as it curved north toward mainland China. By Sunday the system, known internationally as Champi, had been downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of about 102 kilometers per hour, according to Taiwan's Central Weather Administration — a fraction of the roughly 296 kph winds it carried at its peak intensity less than a week earlier.

Taiwan's Central Emergency Operation Center said the only fatality was a man swept off a beach by storm-driven waves in Liuqiu Township, Pingtung County, on Thursday, the day the storm's effects began reaching the island. By Saturday evening the injury count stood at 616, most of them minor cuts and bruises, according to Focus Taiwan, the island's Central News Agency wire service. Authorities evacuated nearly 5,000 people as a precaution against landslides, and more than 340,000 households lost power at the height of the storm, with roughly 22,000 still dark Saturday night. Rainfall topped 650 millimeters in Yilan County, the heaviest total recorded nationwide.

• 1 confirmed death and 616 injuries in Taiwan as of Saturday evening
• Nearly 5,000 people evacuated in Taiwan; 62,400 evacuated in Shanghai
• More than 340,000 Taiwanese households lost power; two injured in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture
• Peak winds near 296 kph made it the strongest storm recorded worldwide so far in 2026

A storm three economies had been bracing for

Champi formed as a tropical depression east of Guam in mid-October and intensified unusually quickly, reaching what the U.S. military's Japan Meteorological Agency and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center both classified as super-typhoon strength — winds equivalent to a Category 5 Atlantic hurricane — by October 21. Early forecasts had it making a direct strike on Taiwan's east coast before curving into China's Fujian province, prompting evacuation planning across three governments days in advance. The track shifted north sooner than first expected, sparing Taiwan a head-on hit but still drenching the island's north and east with days of heavy rain, according to reporting by Al Jazeera. The storm also clipped Japan's Sakishima and Yaeyama island groups, including Okinawa Prefecture's Ishigaki island, before looping off Taiwan's northeastern Yilan coast and turning toward the Chinese mainland.

Okinawa stranded, Shanghai emptied of tens of thousands

In Japan, the government reported two people injured in Okinawa Prefecture, and hundreds of flights were cancelled as the storm passed through the Sakishima islands, leaving tourists waiting for service to resume on Ishigaki. In China, where the storm's remnants were expected to brush the coast without a direct landfall, Shanghai's flood-control authorities said evacuations of at-risk residents in the Pudong, Baoshan, Jinshan, Fengxian, Qingpu and Chongming districts, along with the Lingang and Yangshan port areas, were completed by Friday evening, totaling 62,400 people, according to China Daily. Shanghai's municipal government said the city had 540 flood-relief shelters and nearly 8,000 temporary evacuation stations standing ready, while fishing vessels across the region returned to port and construction cranes and street trees were reinforced against high winds. Neighboring Zhejiang province suspended ferry routes, closed beaches and moved elderly, pregnant and disabled residents out of vulnerable coastal housing, and state broadcaster CCTV warned of heavy to torrential rain spreading into Jiangsu province as well.

"We hope it's our last day," said Eva Malek, a 49-year-old Polish tourist stranded on Japan's Ishigaki island awaiting a flight home, according to an Agence France-Presse dispatch reported by Hong Kong Free Press.

Cleanup under way as the system weakens further

In Taiwan, where the Central Weather Administration lifted its land warning Saturday afternoon and its sea warning by Saturday evening, cleanup crews logged more than 9,000 damage reports, including 3,287 fallen trees — more than a third of them in Taipei alone — and over 3,000 reports of damage to essential infrastructure. The Danjiang Bridge in New Taipei, closed Friday as a precaution, reopened once winds eased. Most shops in northern and central Taiwan stayed shut for a second straight day. A CWA forecaster, Lin Ping-yu, said the storm's outer bands would bring intermittent rain to areas north of Miaoli County into early Sunday before clearing, with mostly fair weather expected Monday and lingering showers confined to the mountainous east. Martha Wang, a 55-year-old secretary in New Taipei City, described being frightened while riding a scooter across a bridge in the gusts. "I was afraid of being blown away," she said, according to the same AFP account.

For China, forecasters expect the weakening system to track up the coast past Shanghai into Monday before pushing out toward waters south of Japan, with the heaviest remaining rain risk concentrated in Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu through the start of the week. Japanese authorities were still assessing flight-schedule disruption in Okinawa as airlines worked to restore service. No additional landfall warnings were in effect for Taiwan as of Sunday, though the island's Interior Ministry continued to warn residents to stay away from coastlines and ports because of dangerous swells left in the storm's wake. Insurers and disaster-management officials in all three places were expected to begin damage assessments this week, even as the system that briefly ranked as 2026's strongest storm drifted, diminished, into the East China Sea.