Evacuation warnings after Typhoon Nanmadol makes landfall in Japan

Evacuation warnings after Typhoon Nanmadol makes landfall in Japan
September 19, 2022, 10:08 am

Storm wave-Typhoon/Pixabay

Millions of people in Japan were under evacuation warnings on Monday (Sep 19) as Typhoon Nanmadol brought strong winds and heavy rain to the southwest of the country after making landfall overnight.

The powerful system has weakened since arriving on land on Sunday evening (Sep 18) around Kagoshima city in the southwestern region of Kyushu, but it has still uprooted trees, smashed windows and left rivers close to overflowing.

National broadcaster NHK said one person had been killed and 50 others injured as the storm passed through Kyushu. There was no immediate confirmation of the figures from authorities.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who had been scheduled to leave Monday (Sep 19) for the United Nations General Assembly, will delay his trip by a day to check on damage from the storm, his office confirmed.

Officials from the Japan Meteorological Agency warned that in Miyazaki prefecture, where some areas saw more rainfall in 24 hours than they normally receive in all of September, river levels were high.

Millions of people in Japan were under evacuation warnings on Monday (Sep 19) as Typhoon Nanmadol brought strong winds and heavy rain to the southwest of the country after making landfall overnight - Photo. Pixabay

“Even a tiny amount of additional rainfall could cause the water level to increase, so please remain vigilant about flooding and landslides,” Yoshiyuki Toyoguchi from the land ministry told reporters.

Still, given the intensity of the storm, which came ashore packing gusts of up to 234 kilometres (145 miles) an hour, damage appeared relatively limited so far.

Japan warns ‘very dangerous’ typhoon to hit country’s southern Kyushu island

“The typhoon has all but disappeared today and the rain and wind are also subsiding now,” an official in charge of crisis management in Miyazaki’s Saito city told AFP.

“But power is out in some places… we’re also hearing from many residents that electrical wires have been severed and trees have been toppled,” he said, declining to be named.

“Flooding is affecting some areas as well,” he added, saying that officials “believe there are still many details of the damage we’re yet to grasp”.

Typhoon Hinnamnor exits South Korea after dumping rain, winds

Rare “special warnings” for Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, issued only when weather events seen every few decades are forecast, have been downgraded.

But evacuation warnings of various levels remained in place for 9.6 million people on the last day of a holiday weekend in Japan.

The warnings are not mandatory, and authorities have at times struggled to convince residents to leave their homes during extreme weather events.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

levantnews- g7tamil

Biden says Covid ‘pandemic is over’, despite US daily death toll in the hundreds The world's longest-reigning monarchs