{"id":71005,"date":"2026-08-08T15:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/71005\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:52:07","slug":"typhoon-dolphin-batters-japans-okinawa-before-bearing-down-on-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/71005\/","title":{"rendered":"Typhoon Dolphin batters Japan’s Okinawa before bearing down on China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Typhoon Dolphin has cut power to at least 44,000 buildings and injured at least five people after hitting Japan’s Okinawa island on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Flights to and from Okinawa’s main airport – Naha International Airport – were cancelled as it closed on Friday as the storm arrived.<\/p>\n

The storm had maximum wind speeds of 162km\/h (101mph) on Saturday and has been categorised as a “very strong” typhoon by the Japan Meteorological Agency, which warned of high waves, storm surges and lightning strikes.<\/p>\n

Dolphin is expected to make landfall on China’s eastern coast late on Sunday or early on Monday. Authorities there have shut ports and schools ahead of its arrival.<\/p>\n

The main areas in Japan affected by the typhoon are the islands of Okinawa and Amami in the far south-west of the country.<\/p>\n

Five elderly people suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Okinawan prefectural government. Three of them fell because of the strong winds, it said.<\/p>\n

Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reports numerous accounts of trees being toppled by strong winds throughout Nago city in Okinawa, while a car was found overturned and leaking oil in a parking lot.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Satellite imagery showing Typhoon Dolphin approaching Japan’s Okinawa during the week [Reuters]<\/p>\n

In China, Zhejiang’s Ningbo Lishe International Airport said it would stop its operations from 23:30 local time on Saturday (15:30 GMT) and suspend all flights on Sunday.<\/p>\n

A coastal typhoon alert in Zhejiang has been raised to its highest level, and port and ferry services have been halted in the Chinese province.<\/p>\n

Typhoon season in the western Pacific typically occurs between May and October, when typhoons are considered more commonplace. This year is a strong El Ni\u00f1o year<\/a>, which experts say means typhoons can grow to be more intense.<\/p>\n

In an average year of 25 cyclones reaching tropical storm strength in the region, around three usually make landfall in Japan, according to the country’s meteorological agency.<\/p>\n

Some of these will be strong enough to be classified as typhoons \u2013 as was the case with Dolphin.<\/p>\n

A typhoon is the term used for storms that form in the north-west Pacific, whereas a hurricane is the term used for storms that form in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The typhoon is expected to make landfall on China’s eastern coast late on Sunday or early on Monday [Japan Meteorological Agency]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Typhoon Dolphin has cut power to at least 44,000 buildings and injured at least five people after hitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[45730,8,4841,30603,45729,162,1719,37247,43852],"class_list":["post-71005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-okinawa","tag-eastern-coast","tag-japan","tag-japan-meteorological-agency","tag-naha-international-airport","tag-ningbo-lishe-international-airport","tag-okinawa","tag-okinawa-island","tag-strong-winds","tag-typhoon-dolphin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}