Typhoon Dolphin slammed Japan's Okinawa with 101-mph winds, cutting electricity to tens of thousands of buildings and injuring at least five people, and China's eastern coast is next in the storm's path.
The storm hit Okinawa on Saturday with maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometers per hour, toppling trees across the island and forcing residents indoors as the Japan Meteorological Agency classified it a "very strong" typhoon. At least 44,000 buildings lost power, and the Okinawan prefectural government reported five elderly residents suffered injuries, three of them knocked down by the winds. None of the injuries were life-threatening.
Japan's national broadcaster NHK documented widespread damage in Nago, a city on Okinawa's northern end, where crews found trees snapped and uprooted throughout the area. In one parking lot, a car had been flipped onto its roof and was leaking oil, a snapshot of the force that rolled through the island chain in Japan's far southwest.
Naha International Airport, Okinawa's main air hub, closed on Friday before the typhoon's full arrival. All domestic and international flights were canceled. AP News reported that by midday Friday, 240 people had already taken shelter at evacuation centers across the island.
The early closure gave residents time to prepare, but the storm still caught some off guard. The prefectural government's injury reports suggest that elderly residents in particular struggled with the winds even after warnings went out. The Japan Meteorological Agency also warned of high waves, storm surges, and lightning strikes across Okinawa and the nearby Amami islands.
Okinawa sits in one of the most typhoon-prone corridors on earth. The western Pacific typhoon season runs from May through October, and in an average year, 25 cyclones reach tropical storm strength in the region. About three typically make landfall in Japan, BBC News reported, citing the Japan Meteorological Agency.
With Okinawa still assessing damage, Typhoon Dolphin turned toward China's eastern coast. Forecasters expected landfall late Sunday or early Monday, and Chinese authorities moved fast. Zhejiang province raised its coastal typhoon alert to the highest level. Port and ferry services across the province were halted. Schools were shut.
Ningbo Lishe International Airport, a major facility in Zhejiang, announced it would stop all operations beginning at 11:30 p.m. local time Saturday, 3:30 p.m. GMT, and suspend every flight on Sunday. The closure added to the travel disruptions already rippling outward from Okinawa's airport shutdown.
Experts cited in the reporting noted that this year's strong El Niño conditions can allow typhoons to grow more intense. That context matters for a region where millions of people live in low-lying coastal areas and depend on port infrastructure for commerce and daily life.
The typhoon's track also threatened parts of Kyushu, Japan's third-largest island. Residents there were already dealing with damage from a recent deadly earthquake when Dolphin's outer bands began pushing rain and wind into the area. The overlap left communities stretched thin, forced to prepare for a second disaster before recovering from the first.
For Okinawa, the immediate question is how quickly power can be restored to those 44,000 buildings and when Naha Airport can reopen. For China's Zhejiang province, the question is whether the precautions, shuttered ports, grounded flights, closed schools, will be enough when a storm packing triple-digit winds arrives.
Nature does not negotiate timelines. Communities that prepare early and take warnings seriously tend to come through storms like Dolphin with fewer scars, a lesson worth remembering every hurricane season, on every coast.
