Typhoon Champi headed for Japan after causing a dead and 171 wounded in Taiwan

O Champi is now heading south-west of Japan, which remains on alert for landslides and heavy rains, after the typhoon has provoked a dead and 163 wounded in neighboring Taiwan.

According to the Japanese public station, Champi has already made at least two wounded in the south of the archipelago.

A woman about 70 years old was injured in the city of Miyakojima when she fell due to the strong winds associated with Champi, while a 7-year-old girl was injured when a window burst in the city of Yonaguni.

Dozens of flights were also cancelled in Okinawa and nearby Kagoshima Province. Both remain under the alert of the Japan Weather Agency (JMA) due to heavy rains and the risk of landslides.

According to JMA, at 10:00 (02:00 in Lisbon), Champi was about 50 kilometres north-northeast of Yonaguni Island, accompanied by gusts of wind up to 108 kilometers per hour.

The weather organism predicts that the system will continue to advance towards the island of Kyushu, in the southwest, where it may hit the continent on Monday, after losing power.

Typhoon Champi caused at least one dead and more than 500 injured in Taiwan, where some 70,000 homes ran out of electricity and thousands of people were taken out of risk zones, announced today the local authorities.

The storm forced the closure of schools, public services and financial markets, and the cancellation of about a thousand flights.

According to the Taiwanese news agency CNA, about 70,000 homes suffered cuts in electricity supply, of which approximately 20,000 remained without light.

Authorities removed more than 5,000 people from mountainous areas and issued warnings for torrential rains and strong winds, calling on the population, especially residents in coastal areas, to seek shelter.

The storm caused the death of a man, dragged by the waves on a beach in the Pingtung district in the south of the island, and left 171 injured, many of them due to motorcycle falls or traffic accidents.

In mainland China, some railway services were suspended and tens of thousands of people were removed from their homes in the country's financial capital, Shanghai (east).

At the beginning of this week, Champi became one of the most intense storms recorded on the planet since the beginning of the year, with sustained winds close to 300 kilometres per hour during the passage through the Philippine Sea, according to the United States Joint Typhoon Alert Center.

Typhoons are frequent in this region during summer and autumn, when warm Pacific waters favor the formation of tropical cyclones that can cause significant damage and disturb transport and economic activity.