Typhoon Shanshan hit southern Japan, affecting millions of people

One of the most powerful typhoons to hit Japan in recent decades made landfall on Thursday, leaving at least three dead and causing extensive material damage.mainly due to the torrential rains that are hitting the south of the country.

Typhoon Shanshanwhich carries some wind gusts of up to 252 km/h, Arrived on Thursday at around 08:00 (23:00 GMT on Wednesday) on the island of Kyushuthe main island in the south of the country, where 12.5 million people live there.

Authorities ordered the island to be evacuated

Already on Wednesday, The authorities issued the highest alert level In some areas and Hundreds of thousands of people were advised to evacuate their homeswarning of the danger of “Potentially lethal” floods, landslides and sea level rise.

The city of Kunisaki, in the Oita region, on the island of Kyushu, urged its residents to go “to a safe place” or settle in elevated areas, such as the “second floor” of your house, due to the risk of flooding.

Material damage, victims, injured and one missing person

Upon reaching land it lost intensity, with gusts of 160 km/h at most. However, Its danger lies above all in the torrential rains, which caused a deadly avalanche. Three members of the same familya couple in their 70s and their son, in his thirties, They died due to a landslide that buried their homein Gamagori, central Aichi Prefecture.

In the coastal city of Miyazaki, which ended up full of debris of all kinds, 25 injured were reported, some because of a tornado, and about 200 buildings damageda local official told AFP.

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In the coastal city of Miyazaki, nearly 200 buildings have been damaged.

Courtesy of EFE Agency

According to NHK, 59 people were injured in Kyushu and a man who was sailing on a boat went missing in the south of the island. “Our house is fine, but there was a tornado in Miyazaki and the power went out in some places. It’s worrying,” Aoi Nishimoto, an 18-year-old student living in Fukuoka, the island’s main city, told AFP. She said she was able to contact her parents, who live in Miyazaki.

Services interrupted

The typhoon is moving slowly and, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), could advance towards Japan’s main island, Honshu, and the cities of Osaka and Nagoya. According to the agency, the “risk of disasters due to heavy rains could increase rapidly in western Japan by Friday.”

The agency urged the population to to maintain “highest vigilance” due to the risk of phenomena such as “violent storms, waves and high tides in Kagoshima; landslides and flooding in low-lying areas, and rivers overflowing in southern Kyushu.” It is expected that in the south of that island they will fight rainfall records.

The Kyushu public utility operator said that 187,010 homes were left without electricity on the island.

Faced with this situation, the automobile giant Toyota has suspended production at all 14 of its factories in Japan, and Nissan and Honda have temporarily halted production at their Kyushu plants. The island is home to major semiconductor factories, and some of these have also closed as a precaution due to the storm, such as Tokyo Electron.

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Toyota has suspended production at all 14 of its factories in Japan.

Transport was also affected by the typhoon, which forced Japan Airlines and ANA to cancel more than a thousand flights domestic and international on Thursday and Friday, which affected more than 44,000 passengers. Numerous railway connections were interrupted and the high speed train (Shinkansen) stopped running between the cities of Hakata and Tokyo.

Background

From August 15 to 17, another typhoon, Ampil, also caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains in Japan, although its passage only caused injuries and minor damage. Typhoons in the Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to shore, intensifying more quickly and staying on land longer due to climate change, according to a study published last month.

Japan Typhoon Haishen

Three million people have been ordered to evacuate their homes.

Photo: Aroged