Flights cancelled as Typhoon Trami injures dozens in Japan
A powerful typhoon lashed Japan’s mainland yesterday after injuring dozens on outlying islands, triggering warnings of fierce winds, torrential rain, landslides and floods.
Typhoon Trami has already disrupted travel in the world’s third-biggest economy, with bullet train services suspended, more than 1,000 flights cancelled and Tokyo’s evening train services put on hold.
It is the first time East Japan Railway has taken such action, national broadcaster NHK reported.
Trami lost some strength after making landfall near Tanabe City, 450km southwest of Tokyo, earlier in the evening, prompting the Japan Meteorological Agency to downgrade it to a “strong” typhoon from an “extremely strong” one.
At least 75 people suffered minor injuries – mainly cuts from shattered glass – and one woman was reported missing in the Miyazaki region, which was drenched by record rainfall and suffered localised flooding.
According to local media, the woman in her 60s was swept away in a gutter while working with her husband in their rice field.
Authorities have issued non-compulsory evacuation advisories to 1.5 million residents, according to NHK, and officials urged people across the country to stay indoors.
Nearly 500,000 households in the western region of Kyushu and Okinawa have lost power, utilities said.
Violent gusts and heavy rain made it impossible to venture outside, said Yuji Ueno, an official in the town of Shirahama in Wakayama prefecture near Tanabe city.
“From around 2pm, we saw incredible winds and rain. I stepped outside the city hall in the afternoon, and the rain was swirling in the very strong wind. Enormous wind.
“It was difficult to stay standing. It was very scary,” Mr Ueno said.
The typhoon is not expected to hit the capital head-on.
But some businesses were putting up shutters and hunkering down.
Other cities in the expected path of the typhoon were also taking precautions.
Osaka’s Kansai Airport, which is situated on reclaimed land offshore and suffered extensive damage in a storm earlier in September, closed two runways.
Officials piled up sandbags to avoid a repeat of flooding seen during the previous storm.
Speaking from a hotel near the airport, British businessman Richard Swart said: “It’s actually quite warm outside, very windy and with very heavy rain.”
“The airport is closed. There are very few people around and all the shops are shut. “It’s really deserted.” Even from the safety of the hotel, he said he could hear the wind “howling” outside.
The Japanese meteorological agency warned the typhoon would bring strong winds and downpours, which could trigger landslides and floods as well as lightning strikes and tornadoes across the nation.
Trami is the latest in a string of extreme natural events in Japan, which has suffered typhoons, flooding, earthquakes and heatwaves in recent months, claiming scores of lives and causing extensive damage.
Some western regions are still recovering from Typhoon Jebi in early September, the most powerful typhoon to strike the country in a quarter of a century. It claimed 11 lives.
Also in September, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake rocked the northern island of Hokkaido, sparking landslides and leaving more than 40 people dead.