Typhoon Dolphin lashed Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture on Saturday, injuring six people, disrupting flights and leaving more than 50,000 buildings without power, as China shut ports and suspended transport services ahead of the storm’s expected arrival on its east coast.
Five elderly people in Okinawa suffered non-life-threatening injuries, including three who fell because of strong winds, local authorities said. Another person was injured in Kagoshima prefecture.
Nearly 39,000 buildings were without power in Kagoshima, while just over 12,000 were affected in Okinawa.
Domestic carriers All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines cancelled flights to and from Okinawa as severe weather affected the region.
Dolphin was carrying maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometres per hour, with gusts reaching 216 kilometres per hour. Okinawa and the Amami Islands in Kagoshima prefecture were expected to bear the brunt of the storm in Japan.
Chinese authorities expect Dolphin to make landfall between late Sunday and early Monday and have classified it as an orange-category typhoon, the second-highest level in the country’s warning system.
Amid concerns over flooding and landslides, authorities raised the emergency response for Dolphin by one level to Level III.
China’s National Meteorological Center said the storm was most likely to make landfall between Zhoushan in Zhejiang province and Fuding in Fujian province, with winds of between 38 and 45 metres per second near its centre.
The National Marine Forecasting Center maintained its highest red-level warning for waves on Saturday, forecasting waves of between five and eight metres in coastal waters off Zhejiang through Sunday afternoon.
An orange-level warning was also in place for coastal waters off Shanghai and northern Fujian, where waves could reach between three and 5.5 metres.
Chinese authorities issued five weather and disaster warnings on Saturday evening, including orange alerts for the typhoon, heavy rain and geological-disaster risks, as well as a red alert for mountain torrents.
Heavy rain and strong winds are forecast to affect eastern China through 12 August, including parts of Shanghai and neighbouring provinces.
Some areas could experience short periods of rainfall exceeding 80 millimetres an hour, accompanied by thunderstorms and strong winds.
Zhejiang, one of China’s largest provincial economies and a major manufacturing and export hub, raised its coastal typhoon alert to the highest level and suspended port operations.
Authorities across eastern and southern China also halted ferry services and some construction work, while fishing vessels were ordered to return to port.
Ningbo Lishe International Airport in Zhejiang said all flights would be suspended on Sunday. Shanghai’s Yangshan port had been cleared of vessels by late Friday, while some railway services in the Yangtze River Delta are due to be suspended from Sunday.
Authorities in Beijing said they were monitoring the typhoon’s path and preparing flood-control and evacuation plans for the capital.
In Taiwan, 78 flights, most of them international, were cancelled because of the typhoon, according to the government.
Heavy rain was forecast across northern parts of the island over the weekend, although authorities had not ordered evacuations as of Saturday.
The storm also fuelled tensions across the Taiwan Strait after China ordered vessels passing through the waterway to comply with its traffic-control instructions.
Taipei criticised the measures as “ridiculous”, saying Beijing had no right to restrict access to international waters.
China considers democratically governed Taiwan part of its territory and claims sovereignty over the strategic strait. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, while Washington maintains that the status of the strait should not be altered unilaterally.
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