Typhoon Champi leaves 56,000 Taiwan homes without power

Typhoon Champi left around 56,000 households in Taiwan without power Saturday after authorities evacuated more than 5,000 people before the storm.

One person has been killed and more than 500 injured since Taiwan began issuing warnings about the approaching typhoon on Thursday. The storm toppled trees, brought down power lines and caused brief flooding.

Nearly 24 centimetres of rain was recorded Saturday in Miaoli county in western Taiwan. Forecasters said Champi had dumped 65 centimetres of rain since Thursday in Yilan county in the northeast, where the storm weakened overnight after making a loop offshore.

Most shops across northern and central Taiwan were closed for a second day. Wuu Woan-hwa of Taiwan's Central Weather Administration said the period of Champi's most severe impact had passed, but warned that winds and waves around Taiwan remained strong as the typhoon moved north.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said Champi was packing winds of 120 kilometres per hour on Saturday. The storm had briefly been a super typhoon over the Pacific, with reported maximum sustained winds of nearly 300 kph.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said parts of Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and other areas were expected to see heavy to torrential rain. Some train services were suspended and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Shanghai. Dozens of flights were cancelled in the region, including in Japan's Okinawa prefecture, where the government said two people were injured.