Typhoon Champi kills one, injures 527 in Taiwan as storm weakens offshore

Typhoon Champi left one person dead and 527 injured in Taiwan as of Saturday morning, according to the island's Central Emergency Operations Center, after the storm skirted the northeast coast with gusts above 220 km/h, grounded nearly a thousand flights and forced thousands of residents from flood- and landslide-prone areas.

The storm never made a direct landfall, tracking offshore as Taiwan's Central Weather Administration (CWA) had forecast earlier in the week, but its outer bands still delivered the kind of wind and rain more typically associated with a strike. The sole fatality was a man swept away by storm-driven waves on a beach in Liuqiu Township, Pingtung County, on Thursday; he was found without vital signs that afternoon and pronounced dead at a hospital. Most of the injuries, concentrated in Taipei and Taichung, came from downed trees, falling electrical cables, falling billboards and burst water pipes, authorities said, with traffic accidents and falls accounting for dozens more.

A storm that stayed just offshore

Champi reached maximum sustained winds of nearly 300 km/h in the Philippine Sea in the days before it reached Taiwan, briefly making it the most powerful tropical cyclone recorded anywhere on Earth in 2026. By the time it brushed Taiwan's coast on Friday it had weakened, though the CWA still recorded sustained winds of 209 km/h and a gust above 221 km/h at Sandiao Cape in New Taipei late Friday night. As of 10 a.m. Saturday the storm was centered about 170 km east-northeast of Yilan County, moving north at 21 km/h with maximum sustained winds down to 126 km/h, and the CWA said it expected Champi to weaken further to tropical-storm strength by Saturday afternoon. A sea warning issued late Wednesday and a land warning issued Thursday morning were both expected to be lifted by Saturday evening as the system pulled away.

"It was most terrifying around midnight. It was a sleepless night. I haven't seen anything like this in many years," said Lin, a retired teacher in Yilan County, describing the storm to Reuters.

Flights grounded, power cut, thousands evacuated

The disruption on the ground was extensive even without a landfall. Airlines cancelled 977 flights and ferry operators suspended 96 sailings on ten routes on Friday alone, and dozens more domestic and international flights were cancelled or delayed into Saturday. Three Taipei-area MRT lines and the Danjiang Bridge were shut to traffic Friday afternoon, and offices and schools in 13 counties and cities, including Taipei and Taichung, stayed closed for a second straight day on Saturday.

Taiwan Power Co. reported 77,498 households without electricity as of 2 p.m. Friday; crews had restored service to roughly three-quarters of them by that point, leaving just over 19,000 still in the dark. Local governments evacuated people from landslide-prone districts, including nearly 1,400 residents of New Taipei's Yingge, Xindian, Pingxi and Shulin areas and 350 people in Yilan's Datong and Nan'ao townships. On the east coast, waves reported as high as 8 meters struck Changbin Harbor in Taitung, sending seawater over roads and overturning bamboo rafts, while a large crane toppled into the sea at Fugang Fishing Port after a separate set of swells. Taiwan's Directorate-General of Highways closed a southbound lane of Provincial Highway 9 near Duoliang Village in Taitung County after erosion washed away part of the roadbed.

Okinawa and China also in the storm's path

Champi's reach extended well beyond Taiwan. In Japan's Okinawa Prefecture, about 8,400 households lost power and two people were injured, the prefectural government said, as the storm hovered nearby before its forecast track carried it past the Ryukyu Islands toward mainland Japan. Japan's Meteorological Agency had the storm on a path that would take it near Kyushu by the weekend. Authorities on China's east coast, meanwhile, warned of strong winds and heavy-to-torrential rain in Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang; Shanghai suspended some train services and moved tens of thousands of people out of vulnerable areas as a precaution.

Forecasters have linked the storm's intensity to a Pacific typhoon season running hotter than usual this year under the influence of El Niño, which the World Meteorological Organization has said is expected to peak in December with effects lingering into 2027. Champi is the latest in a string of unusually powerful systems to cross the western Pacific this season, having already brushed Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands with damaging winds earlier in October before curving toward Taiwan and Japan.

Even as the storm weakened, officials warned the danger was not over. Wu Wan-hua, deputy director of the CWA's Weather Forecast Center, said Saturday that while Champi's winds and rain were easing, waves remained high, exceeding 6 meters off Taiwan's north and east coasts. Local governments kept beaches, mountain trails and other hazard areas closed through the weekend; three tourists who were caught entering a closed area despite the warnings faced fines under Taiwan's disaster-prevention law.

What happens next

With Champi now pulling away from Taiwan and expected to drop below typhoon strength by Saturday afternoon, the CWA's heavy-rain advisories remain in effect for parts of the north, center and south, with rain forecast to ease overnight and stop entirely in the south, southeast and east by Sunday morning. Power crews were continuing repairs to the roughly 19,000 households still without electricity as of Friday afternoon, and airlines and ferry operators were expected to resume more normal schedules once the land and sea warnings lift Saturday night. Authorities in Taitung said they would temporarily close the eroded lane of Highway 9 and install concrete breakwater blocks to stop further damage to the roadbed, while emergency officials said they would keep monitoring landslide-prone districts where evacuation orders remained in place into the weekend.