United States

By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist

August 04, 2012; 8:23 AM

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This satellite image shows Saola in between Taiwan and mainland China late Thursday afternoon, local time.

Typhoon Saola crashed ashore in northeastern Taiwan early Thursday, before making a second landfall in eastern China early Friday as a tropical storm.

Meanwhile, Typhoon Damrey weakened to a tropical storm shortly after it made landfall a couple hundred miles north of Shanghai, near the city of Rizhao, Thursday night.

Saola had been the stronger of the two, the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane, but it hooked to the left and made landfall over northeastern Taiwan and was later downgraded to a tropical storm.

Strong winds buffeted central and northern Taiwan, home to Taipei, Wednesday night into Thursday, local time. The large city was being blasted by 60-mph winds and sheets of heavy rain.

Saola unleashed torrential rain throughout northern and western Taiwan, with three-day amounts topping 70 inches in at least one location, the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau said Thursday on its website.

The city of Taichung received over a foot of rain in 12 hours on Thursday, even as Saola began to pull away from the island.

The storm caused nearly all of the island to "close down," the Straits Times said.

The heavy rain triggered landslides and has been blamed for several deaths, according to media reports.

After days of recovery efforts, the death toll across the Philippines has risen to 26 in the wake of Saola which brought feet of rain to northern parts of the country. Thousands of people remain homeless following the widespread flooding.

As Saola remained offshore to the south of Shanghai, Damrey made landfall as a strong tropical storm Thursday night.

Even though Damrey passed well north of Shanghai, effects were still felt across the city. Some flights were canceled from the international airport, while some trains going to areas affected by the storms have been canceled through Saturday.

The two tropical cyclones forced thousands of fishing boats to return to port while 50,000 people were relocated from coastal locations in anticipation of the storms, according to the provincial flood prevention department.

Meteorologist Eric Leister contributed to this story.