Devastating impact: (Top and below) Rescue workers conducting search and rescue operation at a landslide site caused by a heavy rain due to the approach of Typhoon Shanshan in Gamagori, Aichi prefecture. — Reuters/AFP
The country braced for its strongest typhoon of the year, with authorities advising tens of thousands of people to evacuate and issuing the highest warning level for wind and storm surges on the main southern island of Kyushu.
“Typhoon Shanshan is expected to approach southern Kyushu with extremely strong force through Thursday (today) and it may make landfall,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters yesterday.
“It is expected that violent winds, high waves, and storm surge at levels that many people have never experienced before may occur,” said Hayashi, the top government spokesman.
The approach of the storm, packing gusts of up to 252kph and already bringing widespread heavy rain, prompted auto giant Toyota to suspend production at all 14 of its factories.
Two people remained unaccounted for yesterday after a landslide buried a house with five family members inside in Gamagori, a city in central Aichi prefecture.
Rescuers worked around the clock and yesterday afternoon they pulled out a woman in her 70s.
“She wasn’t breathing and was unconscious,” a Gamagori official said.
They were still searching for a man in his 70s and another in his 30s.
For southern Kyushu the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) predicted 110cm of precipitation in the 48 hours to tomorrow.
It also issued its highest “special warning” for violent storms, waves and high tides in parts of the Kagoshima region of Kyushu, with authorities there advising 56,000 people to evacuate.
Video on NHK TV showed roof tiles being blown off houses, broken windows and felled trees.
The warnings indicate that the “possibility that a major disaster prompted by (the typhoon) is extremely high,” Satoshi Sugimoto, chief forecaster of JMA, told a news conference.
Japan Airlines cancelled 172 domestic flights and six international flights scheduled for yesterday and today, while ANA nixed 219 domestic flights and four international ones on yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Kyushu Railway said it would suspend some Shinkansen bullet train services between Kumamoto and Kagoshima Chuo from yesterday night and warned of further possible disruption.
Trains between Tokyo and Fukuoka, the most populous city on Kyushu, may also be cancelled depending on weather conditions this week, other operators said. — AFP
