Super Typhoon Champi finally pulled away from Taiwan late Saturday after a punishing two-day siege, leaving one person dead, 616 injured and a trail of flooded roads, downed power lines and stranded travelers across the island, according to Taiwan's Central Emergency Operations Center.

The storm's only confirmed fatality was a man swept off a beach by storm-driven waves in Liouciou Township, Pingtung County, on Thursday. Rescuers found him without vital signs hours later. The injury toll climbed steadily as the storm lingered — from 94 hurt as of Friday morning to 350 by Saturday evening and finally 616 once Champi cleared the island, per the Taipei Times.

A storm too big to dodge

Champi peaked days earlier as a Category 5-equivalent system with a central pressure near 900 hPa and gusts reported above 300 km/h, ranking among the strongest tropical cyclones recorded anywhere on the planet in 2026. Taiwan's Central Weather Administration had forecast the storm would curve north and spare a direct landfall — and it did — but its enormous 320-kilometer wind radius meant the island absorbed days of damaging wind and rain regardless.

"The storm's wind radius is quite large, among the bigger ones in recent years. If the storm slows down, the strong winds will affect Taiwan for longer," CWA forecaster Liu Pei-teng said as the typhoon approached.

More than 2,600 residents were evacuated from vulnerable mountainous areas, and thousands of military personnel were placed on standby for rescue operations. At the peak of the storm, all 262 domestic and 715 international flights were canceled in a single day, while ferries to outlying islands were suspended and thousands of travelers were left stranded in Kinmen and Penghu. Roughly 77,500 households lost power at the height of the storm; more than three-quarters had electricity restored within a day.

Rainfall totals were extreme in the mountains: the Taipingshan station in Yilan County logged more than 500mm, reaching what forecasters classify as "extremely torrential," and officials had warned some areas could see up to 900mm of cumulative rain. Taiwan's Ministry of Agriculture put initial crop losses at roughly NT$133 million (about US$4.2 million), a figure expected to rise as assessments continue.

Before reaching Taiwan, Champi had already clipped Guam with damaging winds and flooding in mid-October, and it triggered mass flight cancellations across Japan's Okinawa and outlying Ryukyu islands, where Japan Airlines and ANA scrapped dozens of routes. Chinese authorities in Zhejiang and Fujian suspended ferry routes and ordered fishing fleets back to port as a precaution even though the storm's track ultimately bent away from the mainland.

Taiwan's land warning was lifted Saturday evening as Champi weakened into a tropical storm and continued moving toward waters near southern Japan. Health officials have since urged residents to take care during cleanup, warning that standing water and storm debris raise the risk of waterborne and vector-borne illness in the storm's aftermath.