Typhoon Sanba, packing winds of 137kph, slammed into South Korea yesterday, bringing torrential rains across the country and shutting down flights and ferry services.
Sanba — the third major typhoon to hit the Korean Peninsula in two months — was roaring close to Daegu yesterday afternoon after making landfall at Yeosu shortly before midday.
Moving at around 35kph, the typhoon pounded the South Korean island of Jeju overnight on Sunday, leaving about 10,000 homes without power and damaging roads. Heavy rains across the country triggered landslides that killed a 53-year-old woman in Seongju and injured two people in nearby Gyeongju City.
As it crossed southwestern Japan on Sunday, the typhoon had claimed one life and cut power to 100,000 households.
“Although its power is diminishing due to the low sea temperature, and is expected to diminish even more after making landfall, it’s still a powerful typhoon,” a spokesman for the Korea Meteorological Administration said.
Seoul authorities warned of heavy rainfall of nearly 300mm in Jeju and southern coastal regions from Sunday to last night.
Severe storm alerts issued in southern regions earlier yesterday expanded to the entire country in the afternoon, the weather service said, adding floods warnings have also been issued in some areas.
“The entire nation will experience very strong wind and heavy rain as the typhoon moves northward,” it said, urging “special caution” in the east coastal regions to be hit by downpour of up to 300mm throughout yesterday.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged officials to mobilize “all possible resources” to limit the impact on farm produce prices ahead of a major holiday.
“With the typhoon expected to roar right across the nation ... please mobilize all possible resources, including the army, to minimize crop damages ahead of the Chuseok [fall harvest] holiday,” Lee’s spokesman quoted him as saying.
As the typhoon made landfall, powerful winds uprooted large trees, ripped away business hoardings and advertising billboards and knocked over traffic lights. Several train services were suspended or delayed due to landslide and strong wind that also caused power cuts which hit about 130,000 homes mostly in southern regions. The typhoon is expected to move northeast across the peninsula and back out to sea over the North Korean port of Chongjin.
More than 260 flights — including 52 international — and all 88 ferry services across South Korea were canceled yesterday, the transport ministry said, adding 2,000 ships had been taken out of the storm’s path. About 1,100 residents in vulnerable areas have been taken to shelters, the National Emergency Management Agency said, while 12,000 residents in other areas have been advised to evacuate.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver