Hagibis is wreaking havoc on mainland Japan and is expected to bring with it the heaviest rain and winds in sixty years. More than a million people have been advised to evacuate.
ADVERTISEMENTOne man was killed and more than 30 people were injured as a powerful typhoon bore down on Tokyo on Saturday, bringing with it the heaviest rain and winds in 60 years.
More than six million people were advised to evacuate.
Typhoon Hagibis, which means “speed” in the Philippine language Tagalog, made landfall on Japan’s main island of Honshu late on Saturday, threatening to flood low-lying Tokyo as it coincides with high tide.
The storm, which the government warned could be the strongest to hit Tokyo since 1958, has already brought record-breaking rainfall in Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo with a whopping 700 mm (27.6 inches) of rain over 24 hours.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued the highest level of warning for some areas in Tokyo, Kanagawa and five other surrounding prefectures, warning of amounts of rain that occur only once in decades.
“We are seeing unprecedented rain,” an agency official told a news conference carried by public broadcaster NHK. “Damage from floods and landslides is likely taking place already.”
Many people in and around Tokyo were already taking shelter in temporary evacuation facilities.
Tokyo’s Haneda airport and Narita airport in Chiba both stopped flights from landing and connecting trains were suspended, forcing the cancellation of more than a thousand flights, according to Japanese media.
Kanagawa prefecture officials said they would release water from the Shiroyama dam, southwest of Tokyo, and alerted residents in areas along nearby rivers.
Heavy winds have already caused some damage, particularly in Chiba east of Tokyo, where one of the strongest typhoons to hit Japan in recent years destroyed or damaged 30,000 houses a month ago.
A man in his forties was killed in an overturned car in the prefecture early on Saturday, while five people were injured as winds blew roofs off several houses, according to NHK. Several people were missing in a town near Tokyo after a landslide destroyed two houses, NHK said.
Experts warned that Tokyo, while long conditioned to prepare for earthquakes, was vulnerable to flooding.
Tokyo, where 1.5 million people live below sea level, is prone to damage from storm surges, Nobuyuki Tsuchiya, director of the Japan Riverfront Research Center, told Reuters.
“We are heading toward high tide. If the typhoon hits Tokyo when the tide is high, that could cause storm surges and that would be the scariest scenario,” he said. “People in Tokyo have been in a false sense of security.”
More than 60,000 households have lost power, including 14,900 in Chiba, which was hit hard by typhoon Faxai a month ago, the industry ministry said.