Typhoon Dolphin lashed Okinawa on Saturday, injuring five people and cutting power to 14,000 buildings, the Japan Times reported. [1] The five were elderly. Three fell in the wind. None of the injuries were life-threatening. ANA and Japan Airlines cancelled flights to the region.

At noon the storm sat about 160 kilometers northwest of Kume Island, moving northwest at 15 kilometers per hour. [1] Sustained winds were 162 kilometers per hour. Gusts reached 216. China shut ports and 162 ferry routes ahead of an expected late-Sunday to early-Monday landfall between Zhoushan and Fuding. Ningbo airport said it would halt operations from 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Taiwan cancelled 63 international flights.

A strait traffic-control dispute is a separate political sentence. Saturday's completed household record is 14,000 dark buildings and five people hurt. Chinese landfall is still future.

Okinawa and Amami were the main Japanese areas expected to be hit. [1] Zhejiang raised its coastal alert to the highest level. Shanghai's Yangshan port had been cleared of vessels by late Friday. China told ships in the Taiwan Strait to heed its traffic control; Taipei called that ridiculous. The outage count does not need that argument to be true.

Fourteen thousand dark buildings is the household Saturday. [1]

-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing