After sweeping over Taiwan, Typhoon “Haikui” hit China’s southeastern province of Fujian early September 5, 2023, dropping record-breaking rains. Haikui caused severe flash flooding and traffic chaos, damaged power and communication lines, and forced more than 30 000 people to evacuate. At least one person died.
Haikui formed on August 28 and rapidly strengthened into a severe tropical storm as it entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility. It remained a tropical storm while moving westward across the Philippine Sea for about a day and reached typhoon intensity on September 1. The storm continued intensifying and by September 2 it was a Category 2-equivalent typhoon. A rapid intensification phase followed and Haikui was a Category 3-equivalent typhoon about 18 hours before landfall in Taiwan.
Haikui hit Taiwan’s Taitung County as a Category 3-equivalent typhoon on September 3, becoming the first tropical cyclone to hit mainland Taiwan after Severe Tropical Storm “Bailu” in 2019 and the first Category 3+ typhoon to hit the island since Typhoon “Megi” in 2016. It then moved eastwards and made a second landfall in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Before it exited into the Taiwan Strait, Haikui left more than 160 000 homes without power and injured more than 40 people.
On September 5, Haikui reached southeastern China and made landfall along the coast of Dongshan County, Fujian as a tropical storm.
