Typhoon leaves as many as 33 dead as Japan continues rescues
TOKYO — Helicopters, boats and thousands of troops were deployed across Japan to rescue people stranded in flooded homes Sunday, as the death toll from a ferocious typhoon climbed to as high as 33. One woman fell to her death as she was being placed inside a rescue helicopter.
Typhoon Hagibis made landfall south of Tokyo on Saturday evening and battered central and northern Japan with torrents of rain and powerful gusts of wind. The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm Sunday.
Public broadcaster NHK said 14 rivers across the nation had flooded, some spilling out in more than one spot.
The Tokyo Fire Department said a woman in her 70s was accidentally dropped 131 feet to the ground while being transported into a rescue helicopter in Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture, a northern area devastated by the typhoon.
Department officials held a news conference to apologize, bowing deeply and long, according to Japanese custom, and acknowledged the woman had not been strapped in properly.
The government’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency, which tends to be conservative in its counts, said late Sunday that 14 people died, 11 were missing and 187 were injured as a result of the typhoon. It said 1,283 homes were flooded and 517 were damaged, partially or totally.
Japanese media tallies were higher. Kyodo News agency reported that 33 people died and 19 were missing. “The major typhoon has caused immense damage far and wide in eastern Japan,” government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters.
News footage showed a rescue helicopter hovering in a flooded area in Nagano prefecture where an embankment of the Chikuma River broke, and streams of water were continuing to spread over residential areas. The chopper plucked those stranded on the second floor of a home submerged in muddy waters.