Typhoon slams western Japan
People stranded at a flooded offshore airport overnight returned by boat and bus to the Japanese mainland yesterday after a typhoon swept across part of Japan’s main island.
At least nine people died and more than 200 people were injured as Jebi, reportedly the strongest typhoon to make landfall in Japan since 1993, headed north across the main island of Honshu. It has been downgraded to a tropical storm.
It was off the northern coast of Fukui on Tuesday night with sustained winds of 126kmh and gusts up to 180kmh, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
More than 700 flights were cancelled, according to Japanese media tallies. The high-speed bullet train service was suspended from Tokyo west to Hiroshima, though service partially resumed when the typhoon left the region.
More than 1.6 million households had no power in Osaka, Kyoto and four nearby prefectures late on Tuesday, according to Kansai Electric Power.
High seas poured into Kansai International Airport, built on artificial islands in Osaka Bay, flooding one of its two runways, cargo storage and other facilities, and forcing it to shut down, said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
A passenger was slightly injured by shards from a window shattered by the storm.
A 2591-tonne tanker that was mooring slammed into the side of a bridge connecting the airport to the mainland, damaging the bridge and making it unusable, leaving about 3000 passengers stranded at the airport, transport ministry official Mitsuo Nakao said.
The tanker was also damaged but its 11 crew members were not injured and remained on board the vessel, according to the coast guard.
NHK public television showed passengers sitting or lying on the floor in the airport terminal in the dark without air conditioning.
A man in his 70s died apparently after being blown to the ground from his apartment in Osaka prefecture.
Police said five others died elsewhere in the prefecture after being hit by flying objects or falling from their apartments.
In nearby Shiga prefecture, a 71-year-old man died when a storage building collapsed on him, and a man in his 70s died after falling from a roof in Mie, officials said.
Daihatsu Motor stopped production at its Kyoto and Osaka factories, while Panasonic halted work at its air conditioning and refrigerator factory in Shiga.
Major beverage maker Kirin suspended production at its brewery in Kobe, according to Kyodo News agency.
Elsewhere in Osaka, the Universal Studios Japan theme park and US Consulate were both closed.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cancelled a scheduled trip to Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island, to oversee the government’s response to the typhoon, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.
In nearby Nishinomiya in Hyogo prefecture, about 100 cars at a seaside dealership were in flames after their electrical systems were shorted out by sea water, fire officials and news reports said.
The typhoon first made landfall on Japan’s southwest island of Shikoku and then again near Kobe on Honshu.
Tokyo escaped relatively unscathed, with some intermittent squalls. –