The strongest storm to hit Japan this year battered the southern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku early yesterday, bringing heavy rain to Tokyo and causing extensive travel disruption.
Typhoon Vongfong has forced the cancelation of more than 500 domestic flights, public broadcaster NHK said, while an airline said at least one overseas flight was canceled.
Many trains in western cities were also suspended, NHK said, adding that more than 820,000 people have been urged to leave their homes. About 4,900 households in Tokyo suburbs were without power, media said.
Rain in Tokyo was expected to intensify overnight.
Vongfong battered the southern island of Okinawa, 600km south of the capital, as well as Kyushu and Shikoku islands, injuring 59 people, the broadcaster said.
On Sunday, the wind weakened significantly from the previous day, when it reached a peak of 234 kph, which had temporarily made Vongfong a super typhoon.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, said in a statement it had increased the facility’s water transfer and storage capacity to prevent an overflow of radioactive water being stored at the plant.
A major baseball game in Osaka between the Orix Buffaloes and the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters for the Pacific League playoff was postponed by the storm. It was the first time a Nippon Professional Baseball playoff was canceled because of a typhoon.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing