According to Agence France-Presse, a typhoon hit Taiwan and the southernmost island of Japan, and moved towards China on Saturday (October 24). The storm left thousands of homes without power and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
According to the latest data from the United States Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Typhoon Champi's wind speed has dropped to 102 kilometers per hour, so it was downgraded to a tropical storm.
Taiwanese authorities evacuated more than 5,000 people before the storm hit. The storm downed trees, downed power lines and caused brief flooding.
One person has died and more than 600 people have been injured since the government began issuing typhoon warnings on Thursday.
The storm brought violent wind and rain to large areas of Taiwan, and power supply has been restored to more than 90% of the more than 340,000 households affected.
Most stores in northern and central Taiwan were closed for a second day in a row as the typhoon left northeastern Taiwan and moved north toward China.
"Although the typhoon is gradually moving away, we would like to remind the public that long waves and strong gusty winds will still occur in coastal areas," Wu Wanhua of Taiwan's Central Meteorological Administration said at a press conference.
Qiangpi is the latest storm in this year's Pacific storm season. This year's storm season is very active, driven strongly by El Niño. El Niño has caused unprecedented warming in the equatorial Pacific.
In the past few days, the storm briefly intensified into a super typhoon as it crossed the ocean, with maximum sustained winds reported of nearly 300 kilometers per hour.
According to the meteorological department, the storm swirled off the coast of Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan at night and weakened in intensity. Yilan has accumulated at least 65 centimeters of rain since Thursday.
On Saturday morning, 55-year-old secretary Martha Wang was riding a motorcycle across a bridge in New Taipei City. She said she was worried about being "blown away" by the wind. "I was really scared because I was on the bridge. My motorcycle kept shaking," she told AFP.
Librarian William Yu, also 55, shrugged off the storm. He said the typhoon was "no stronger than other typhoons." "I went to a convenience store to eat last night (night) and everything was normal."
Chinese authorities issued warnings for "strong winds and heavy rain" as Qiangpi approached China's eastern coast, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Some train services in Shanghai have been suspended and tens of thousands of people have evacuated their homes.
"Heavy to heavy rains are expected to occur in some areas in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and other places," CCTV said.
Hundreds of flights have been canceled across the region, including in Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa. The Okinawa Prefectural Government said two people were injured in the typhoon.
Tourists on Ishigaki Island are waiting for flights to resume so they can return home. "We hope this is our last day (here)," Eva Malek, a 49-year-old tourist from Poland, told AFP. "It's not easy to get information. We didn't know the situation and we didn't expect something like this to happen. When the typhoon came, we didn't expect it to be so strong."
The United Nations said on Wednesday that the intensity of the El Niño phenomenon that is gripping the world will "explode" and that countries should take urgent action to prepare for the worst.
El Niño is expected to peak in December, but its impact on humans will last until 2027 and beyond.
El Niño is a warm phase in the natural climate cycle, which is a professional term used in meteorology and oceanography to describe certain periodic climate phenomena entering a "warmer than normal" phase. It could temporarily warm tropical Pacific ocean waters, triggering weather changes that increase the risk of droughts and floods and exacerbate human-caused global warming.
