By Saturday morning, at least 44,000 buildings across Okinawa had lost power. Typhoon Dolphin, carrying maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometres per hour, had already forced the closure of Naha International Airport on Friday, stranding travellers and halting hundreds of scheduled flights. The Japan Meteorological Agency classified the system as a "very strong typhoon" and issued warnings for high waves, dangerous storm surges, and lightning across the archipelago's south-western islands. The human toll, while limited in scale, was concentrated among the most vulnerable.

Five elderly residents of Okinawa sustained non-life-threatening injuries, three of them knocked to the ground by gusts that also toppled trees across Nago city and overturned at least one car in a parking lot. The prefectural government confirmed no fatalities had been reported, though emergency crews continued to assess damage across the island chain. The neighbouring island of Amami, also in Japan's far south-west, was similarly affected as the typhoon tracked northward. Dolphin is not expected to remain over Japan.

Forecasters project it will make landfall on China's eastern coast late Sunday or in the early hours of Monday, a timeline that prompted rapid responses from Chinese authorities. Ports along the coast have been closed and schools shut as officials moved to reduce exposure before the storm arrives with diminished but still significant energy. The storm's path across two nations within a single weekend illustrates how typhoon systems in the western Pacific can shift economic and logistical burdens across borders in a matter of hours. As China prepares its own response, meteorologists are watching whether Dolphin will weaken substantially over the East China Sea — or hold enough force to cause serious damage onshore.