Powerful Typhoon Champi has thrown parts of East Asia into turmoil, forcing flight cancellations, shutting schools and offices, and triggering mass evacuations as the ferocious storm barrels towards Taiwan’s north-eastern coast.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled across the region on Friday as authorities scrambled to protect residents from destructive winds, torrential rainfall and dangerous coastal waves.
The storm has already claimed one life after a person was swept away by waves, while 171 others sustained injuries and about 1,000 people were forced to evacuate, according to authorities.
Taiwan shut schools and offices as Champi approached, with forecasters warning that parts of the island’s north-east could receive up to 90 centimetres of rain by Saturday.
Packing wind gusts of 191 kilometres per hour on Friday afternoon, Champi had emerged as the strongest storm recorded globally so far this year at its peak earlier in the week.
Although weather agencies in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan forecast that the storm’s eye would pass without making landfall in Taiwan, officials warned that a direct hit could not be ruled out.
A forecaster with Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration told Reuters that changes in the storm’s movement, including stalling or sudden shifts in direction, could still bring it ashore.
After passing Taiwan’s north-eastern tip and Japan’s southern Okinawa islands, Champi is expected to linger over waters off China’s eastern coast before turning north-east towards Japan’s main island.
The typhoon is the latest in a series of intense storms emerging amid concerns over a developing Super El Niño, a climate phenomenon associated with unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures that can influence weather patterns.
With dangerous winds, extreme rainfall and coastal flooding threatening vulnerable communities, authorities across the region remain on alert as Champi continues its unpredictable journey.
