Al Jazeera English, on Climate, 23 October 2026

6.0out of 10Serious

Typhoon Champi hits Taiwan, killing one and injuring 350

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Typhoon Champi has struck Taiwan, killing one person and injuring at least 350 others, as authorities warned of “destructive winds” and instructed people to stay indoors.

The storm swept past the island’s northeast on Friday, toppling trees, shutting shops and schools, cutting power to thousands of households, and forcing more than 4,300 people to evacuate from their homes.

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Champi is heading towards China and Japan, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights in the region.

“From tonight through tomorrow morning conditions will be very windy and stormy everywhere,” Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecaster Lin Ping-yu said in a briefing. “Please try to stay indoors.”

Champi was briefly a super typhoon with winds of nearly 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour) but has since weakened. The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported maximum winds of 185km/h (115mph).

Worse is still expected to come on Saturday. Champi could drop up to 900mm (35 inches) of rain between Thursday and Saturday, with the northeast hit hardest, the CWA said. More than 400mm fell in Yilan County on Friday.

CWA forecaster Lu Kuo-chen said the typhoon could slow near the island’s northeastern tip, prolonging its impact.

About 8,400 households in Japan’s Okinawa islands were without power on Friday afternoon, according to the Okinawa Electric Power Company. Champi is forecast to hover near Okinawa and then China’s eastern coast before turning northeast towards mainland Japan.

Champi is the latest storm in .

The United Nations said on Wednesday that El Nino, a natural cycle that warms the tropical Pacific, is heading off the charts.

“The current El Nino event could be unprecedented in strength. Literally off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades,” said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.

It is expected to peak in December, with its impact lasting into 2027 and beyond.

Read the original article on aljazeera.com (opens in a new tab)
What we found (1)

Al Jazeera reports a typhoon that killed one person, injured 350 and forced thousands from their homes. It credits the season's intensity only to El Nino, which it calls a natural cycle, and never says that a warming climate makes intense tropical cyclones more likely. A reader comes away thinking the storm is purely natural.

  1. Leaves out the climate link

    Serious

    “a Pacific season supercharged by El Nino”

    Why this matters
    The words "supercharged by El Nino" put the whole intensity of the storm season down to El Nino. The next sentence describes El Nino as "a natural cycle".
    The impression it gives
    A reader believes Champi and this violent season are the product of a natural ocean cycle alone, with no human part in how strong such storms get.
    The context
    Warming caused by humans has made intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe. The article never mentions climate change or greenhouse gases anywhere, even though it reports a near super typhoon, up to 900mm of rain, one death and hundreds injured.

    How we know

    • On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
    • Elsewhere in the article“a natural cycle that warms the tropical Pacific”
    • Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “climate” and “greenhouse”.

    Show it in the article

    Written straight

    Champi is the latest storm in a Pacific season supercharged by El Nino, a natural cycle. Climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels, is also making intense tropical cyclones and extreme rainfall like this more likely.

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