A powerful typhoon lashed southern Japan yesterday, killing one person, injuring more than 40 others, and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes as gale-driven waves hurtled against coastline defenses and storm surges flooded seaside towns. Another 16 people were reported missing.
The government dispatched 70 Self-Defense Force soldiers to storm-hit areas to fortify defenses, cope with flooding and help evacuate the displaced, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said.
The typhoon grounded hundreds of flights, blocked trains and ferry services and closed down highways, stranding tens of thou-sands of travelers.
PHOTO: EPA
Typhoon Nabi was packing winds of up to 126kph as it made landfall and traveled up the southernmost main island of Kyushu, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. Heavy rain and wind also pounded the neighboring island of Shikoku.
"The wind and rain was so strong earlier this morning, I could hardly walk -- I couldn't leave the building," said Mitoshi Shiroi from his flooded grocery store in Tarumizu, Kyushu.
"The water just keeps on coming in from under the door. And my products will be ruined without electricity," he said.
Power outages affected over 270,000 households in Kyushu, Kyushu Electric Power Co spokesman Tetsuo Yano said.
The typhoon also forced Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to cut short a two-day campaign trip to western Japan ahead of Sunday's national elections.
He was to return to Tokyo last night to avoid the storm, an official from the Liberal Democratic Party said on condition of anonymity, citing party policy.
Police in several prefectures on Kyushu and Shikoku islands confirmed one death and 25 injuries. Another 16 people were missing and over 60,000 were advised to evacuate their homes. Kyodo News Agency reported 41 injuries.
A man in his 70s was found dead after his house was destroyed in a landslide, while nine other people were missing in two other landslides in Miyazaki prefecture, Kyushu island, local police official Takayoshi Tanaka said.
Rescue operations were being hindered by heavy rain and wind, Tanaka said.
An 85-year-old man was also missing in Kagoshima after a mudslide destroyed his home, while a 46-year-old woman and her 10-year-old son were injured when a tree crashed through a window of their home, a local official said.
Japan Airlines and its affiliates canceled 307 flights yesterday, including 10 on international routes, while All Nippon Airlines grounded 374 domestic flights. More than 60,000 people were affected by the cancellations, according to the two companies.
Nabi was expected to move northeast and become the first typhoon to hit South Korea this year.
An Australian university student who has never visited China and has only a modest social media following would seem an unlikely target for the Chinese government. However, when a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman personally denounced Drew Pavlou at a news conference, it was just the next phase in an extraordinary campaign against the 21-year-old that has fueled concerns over China’s targeting of critics overseas. Pavlou first placed himself in the superpower’s sights when in July last year he organized a small sit-in at the University of Queensland, where he studies, to protest against various Chinese government policies. Since then, the Global
‘ASKED TO MOVE OUT’: Indonesian coast guard personnel argued with a Chinese vessel over territorial claims after it entered the country’s exclusive economic zone An Indonesian patrol ship confronted a Chinese coast guard vessel that spent almost three days in waters where Indonesia claims economic rights and that are near the southernmost part of China’s disputed claims to the South China Sea. The Indonesian Maritime Security Agency on Friday night detected Chinese ship 5204 entering Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in what Indonesia calls the North Natuna Sea. The agency sent a patrol ship that closed within 1km of the Chinese coast guard vessel and they communicated to affirm their position and their nation’s claims to the area, Indonesian Maritime Security Agency head Aan Kurnia said. “We
BEFORE WINTER COMES: Snow cuts off roads into Ladakh for four months or more each year, so the crunch is on to get food, tents and high-altitude equipment to Leh From deploying mules to large transport aircraft, the Indian military has activated its entire logistics network to transport supplies to thousands of troops for a harsh winter along a bitterly disputed Himalayan border with China. In the past few months, one of India’s biggest military logistics exercises in years has brought vast quantities of ammunition, equipment, fuel, winter supplies and food into Ladakh, a region bordering Tibet that India administers as a union territory, officials said. The move was triggered by a border standoff with China in the snow deserts of Ladakh that began in May and escalated in June into hand-to-hand
Since her personal telephone number was posted online, Hong Kong democracy advocate and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions chairperson Carol Ng has received menacing calls from strangers and been bombarded with messages calling her a “cockroach.” She is not alone. A sophisticated and shady Web site called HK Leaks has ramped up its “doxxing” — where people’s personal details are published online — of Hong Kong democracy advocates, targeting those it says have broken Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Promoted by groups linked to the Chinese Chinese Communist Party and hosted on Russia-based servers, HK Leaks has become the most prominent “doxxing”
RSS