TYPHOON HITS SOUTH KOREA
Having slammed into Japan over the weekend, the storm was expected to move to N Korea
A POWERFUL typhoon damaged buildings, flooded roads and knocked out power to thousands of homes in South Korea yesterday after battering islands in southern Japan, killing one person and injuring dozens of others.
The Korea Meteorological Administration said Typhoon Haishen was passing over waters off the eastern coastal city of Sokcho after barrelling through South Korea’s southern and eastern regions.
The typhoon was weakening, with its maximum winds measured at 108km/h after blowing at 144km/h in the morning, and was forecast to be downgraded to a tropical storm within six hours.
Japanese disaster management officials in Kagoshima said a woman in her seventies died of a head injury after falling into a ditch while evacuating from a coastal town as Haishen lashed south-western Japan with strong winds and rain over the weekend. Japan’s fire and disaster management agency said at least 38 other people were injured, five of them seriously. Schools and stores were closed in Hiroshima and other cities.
Damage caused by the typhoon was less than feared because it took a path farther from the coast and weakened more quickly than expected.
In South Korea, more than 100 homes were destroyed or flooded, while cars struggled to navigate flooded roads in Ulsan and other coastal cities such as Busan and Gangneung. Emergency workers scrambled to clear toppled trees and damaged traffic signs, buildings, port facilities and other structures.
At least one person was missing after getting swept away by water that filled a drainage channel at a limestone mine in the eastern coastal town of Samcheok. Another person was found dead in Busan, but officials said it wasn’t clear whether the death was caused by the typhoon.
At least five people were hurt, including one in Busan who sustained light injuries after a car flipped over in strong winds, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said.
The storm also destroyed or sank about 80 fishing boats and caused generating turbines at two nuclear reactors in the south-eastern city of Gyeongju to stop. No leakage of radioactive materials was detected.
Hundreds of flights in and out of the southern island province of Jeju and across the mainland were cancelled. Some bridges and railroad sections were shut, thousands of fishing boats and other vessels were moved to safety, and more than 2600 residents in the southern mainland regions were evacuated due to the possibility of landslides and other concerns.
By yesterday afternoon, workers had restored power to 49643 of the 75 237 households in the southern mainland areas and Jeju.
Haishen, which means “sea god” in Chinese, ploughed through Okinawa and other southern Japanese islands over the weekend. Traffic was paralysed in places, bullet train service was suspended and most domestic flights in and out of airports in south-western Japan were cancelled.
Regional officials in Miyazaki said rescue workers were looking for four people missing after a mudslide hit the mountainous village of Shiiba earlier yesterday. A fifth person who was rescued at the site was seriously injured.
Electricity was restored to thousands of homes in Japan, but more than 340 000 others were without power. Nearly 4 million people in Japan were advised to evacuate yesterday afternoon.
By late yesterday, the storm was expected to reach North Korea’s north-eastern region, which was battered by Typhoon Maysak last week, inflicting further pain on an economy ravaged by US-led sanctions, border closures from the coronavirus and chronic food shortages.