At least 18 people were killed and 13 were missing after the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in decades paralysed Tokyo, officials said on Sunday (Oct 13).
Japan sent tens of thousands of troops and rescue workers on Sunday (Oct 13) to save stranded residents and fight floods caused by one of the worst typhoons to hit the country in recent history, which killed 18 people and briefly paralysed Tokyo.
There were also 13 people missing, public broadcaster NHK said, as Typhoon Hagibis left vast swaths of low-lying land in central and eastern Japan inundated and cut power to almost half a million homes.
Landing restrictions at Tokyo’s Narita and Haneda airports were lifted but more than 800 flights were cancelled for the day, NHK said, as were some Shinkansen bullet train services to the worst-hit areas.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an emergency meeting of relevant ministers and sent the minister in charge of disaster management to the affected areas. He offered condolences to the families of those who were killed and said the government was working to save people’s lives and property.
Officials urged residents to be on alert with evacuation orders remaining for about 5.9 million people across 17 prefectures, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
Typhoon Hagibis had moved away from the island by Sunday morning. It was located off the Sanriku coast as of 8.45am local time (7.45am Singapore time), according to the meteorological agency.
More than 420,000 buildings across the country have lost electricity due to the typhoon, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a statement.
Rugby World Cup organisers cancelled a Sunday match between Namibia and Canada in Kamaishi amid safety concerns following torrential rains that caused flooding and landslides around the venue in northern Japan. Games between the United States and Tonga, and Wales and Uruguay will still take place, according to a statement on the tournament’s official website.
Organisers early Sunday were still considering whether to hold a closely watched contest between Japan and Scotland.
Meanwhile, Japan has cancelled a maritime fleet review planned for Monday, a spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defence Force said.
Last held four years ago, the review was due to include 46 naval vessels and 40 aircraft. Ships from Australia, India, the United States, Canada, Singapore and Britain were scheduled to join.
By Sunday morning, the significantly weakened storm had moved back off land, but serious flooding was reported in central Japan’s Nagano, where a burst levee sent water from the Chikuma river gushing into residential neighbourhoods, flooding homes up to the second floor.
Japan’s military deployed helicopters to rescue people seen standing on balconies waving towels to attract attention.
“Overnight, we issued evacuation orders to 427 households, 1,417 individuals,” emergency official Yasuhiro Yamaguchi in Nagano city, told AFP, adding that it was unclear how many homes had been affected.
Aerial footage showed a row of bullet trains half-submerged in muddy waters at a depot in Nagano.
The storm also brought travel chaos during a long holiday weekend in Japan, with flights grounded and both local and bullet trains serving Tokyo suspended fully or partially. But on Sunday morning, train services were resuming and operations were slowly restarting at the two airports serving the capital, although many flights remained cancelled.
Before dawn on Sunday, authorities lifted rain and flood warnings for the Kanto region around a becalmed Tokyo but imposed them on areas further north after Typhoon Hagibis blasted through the capital.
Attention focused on Fukushima, where Tokyo Electric Power Co overnight reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water in its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Three people died in Chiba, Gunma and Kanagawa prefectures surrounding Tokyo, while a man in his 60s was found with no vital signs in a flooded apartment in Kawasaki, public broadcaster NHK said. Seventeen were missing early Sunday, it said.
Source: straitstimes.com
