Hagibis leaves 25 dead in Japan fury
Govt asks millions to evacuate homes
TOKYO: Japan ramped up rescue efforts yesterday for survivors of a massive typhoon that left at least 25 dead and caused rivers to overflow, submerging huge swathes of residential districts and streets.
A day after Typhoon Hagibis lashed Tokyo and other areas in central, eastern and northeastern regions, 15 people are still missing, according to a tally based on information provided by rescuers and other authorities.
Some 27,000 members of the SelfDefence Forces have been dispatched to those regions, including Nagano, where they tried to rescue about 360 people who were stranded after an embankment of the Chikuma River collapsed, with the land ministry warning of the possibility of floodwaters up to 5 meters deep.
Rows of bullet trains parked at East Japan Railway Co’s railyard near Nagano Station, countless facilities and houses in the city and elsewhere were inundated by brown water.
At the prime minister’s office, the government held a meeting of its major disaster management headquarters, during which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, “People’s lives should come first and foremost. Utmost efforts should be made to rescue people from inundated houses and look for people whose whereabouts are unknown”.
“Over 110,000 police officers, firefighters, coast guard officials and SDF personnel are currently engaged in rescue operations,” Mr Abe said. “I ask the people of Japan to remain vigilant against landslides and flooding rivers.”
Over 6 million people across Japan’s main island of Honshu were advised to evacuate, with train operators suspending most services and airports shut down in the metropolitan and surrounding areas between Saturday afternoon and early yesterday.
While evacuation advisories had been lifted by early yesterday in Tokyo and most of central and eastern Japan, the infrastructure ministry said at least 48 landslides and mudflows have been reported in 12 prefectures, and nine rivers burst their banks.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference in the morning that 376,000 homes were without electricity and 14,000 had no running water after Typhoon Hagibis, meaning “swift” in the Philippine language Tagalog, made landfall on Japan’s main island of Honshu before 7pm on Saturday.
Among major events slated for yesterday, the Rugby World Cup match between Namibia and Canada in Kamaishi, northeastern Japan, was cancelled to ensure the safety of players and fans.
The typhoon, which also injured at least 100 people, weakened to an extratropical cyclone off Japan’s northeastern coast yesterday afternoon.
Most train services resumed operations following large-scale suspensions, while Japan Airlines Co and All Nippon Airways Co officials said most of their flights are expected to return to normal today.
The Japan Meteorological Agency had issued the highest downpour warning on its one-to-five scale for Tokyo and the prefectures of Gunma, Saitama, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Nagano, Shizuoka, Niigata, Fukushima, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi and Iwate.
As an emergency measure, some dams released water to avoid bursting.
A tornado hit parts of Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture on Saturday, destroying 12 homes and damaging 70 others.
Local officials said that a man who appeared to be in his 50s was found dead in an overturned car.