Flood-battered southwestern Japan yesterday braced for a typhoon amid fears it could heap further misery on an area where at least 32 are dead or missing after record rainfall.
Typhoon Khanun was lashing the Amami island chain, south of Kyushu, where four days of torrential rain have sparked landslides and flooding, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Khanun — meaning “jack fruit” in Thai — packing winds of up to 108kph, was moving west-northwest at 30kph and was expected to graze the west of Kyushu island, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Yesterday morning brought a lull in the rainfall for most of the region, but the weather agency was warning that there could be up to 15cm of rain in the 24 hours to 6pm in the north of Kyushu.
In hard-hit Minamiaso in -Kumamoto Prefecture, 700 people remained unable to return to their homes because of landslide fears.
“We started reconstruction work on damaged roads yesterday, but workers have been forced to step aside repeatedly by occasional rains,” local official Hideki Kuraoka said.
“Even a small amount of rain could trigger mudslides and more downpours are expected this afternoon. We remain on high alert,” he said.
Kuraoka said even though forecasters said they did not expect a direct hit from the typhoon, it was still a worry.
“We cannot know what damage will be caused by the typhoon,” he said. “We are being extremely vigilant about it.”
Most of the 400,000 people who were ordered or advised to leave their homes were allowed to -return after authorities began lifting evacuation orders on Sunday.
Roads in Aso City remained flooded and inaccessible.
Troops who were called in to help over the weekend yesterday continued their search for four people officially recorded as missing.
They recovered a man’s body from a ditch in Aso, believed to be one of the four still missing, raising the total death toll from landslides and floods across the affected area to 29, local reports said.
Aso, which sits at the foot of a volcano, has seen more than 80cm of rain over the past few days, triggering huge mudslides that swamped whole communities and killed at least 20 people in the city alone.
In scenes reminiscent of last year’s devastating tsunami, families sat on mats on wooden floors in municipal buildings, or gathered around televisions to watch the latest forecasts.
Other parts of Japan were dealing with soaring temperatures as the first really hot days of the sometimes punishing Japanese summer took hold.
The weather agency warned Tokyo was likely to see temperatures of up to 34oC, while Kumagaya, north of the capital, could see the mercury peak at 37oC.
On Monday, a man in his 80s died in central Niigata Prefecture apparently from heat stroke, while nearly 700 people were taken to hospital due to heat exhaustion, local media said.
With the vast bulk of Japan’s nuclear power stations offline in the aftermath of the tsunami-sparked Fukushima disaster, the country is being urged to cut down on electricity usage and the excessive use of air conditioners is being discouraged.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
RSS