Typhoon Nanmadol hits Japan, millions asked to evacuate

 

In Japan, millions of people were under evacuation warnings as Typhoon Nanmadol’s strong winds brought heavy rain to the southwest of the country after causing landfall overnight.

 The system has weakened since Sunday evening around Kagoshima city in Kyushu, but it has uprooted trees, smashed windows and left rivers close to overflowing.

 NHK, a national network, reported one fatality and 50 injuries as the storm moved through Kyushu. The authorities failed to immediately reaffirm the numbers.

 According to his office, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will postpone his travel by one day to check on storm damage before leaving for the UN General Assembly on Monday as planned.

 In Miyazaki prefecture, where some places received more rain in a single day than they typically do in the entire month of September, meteorological agency representatives issued a warning that river levels were high.

 Yoshiyuki Toyoguchi from the land ministry advised reporters to be cautious of flooding and landslides because even a small bit of more rainfall could raise the water level.

 Even so, damage seemed to be rather minor thus far given the storm's severity, which was reflected in the gusts it brought ashore, which reached up to 234 km/h (145 mi/h).

 According to a crisis management official in Miyazaki's Saito city, "the typhoon has almost completely dissipated today, and the rain and wind are also abating now."

 While declining to be identified, he stated, "But power is down in some spots... we're also hearing from numerous neighbours that electrical cables have been damaged and trees have been felled."

 He continued, saying that officials "think there are still many aspects of the damage we're yet to grasp" and that "flooding is hitting several places as well."

 Rare "special warnings," which are only issued when meteorological events seen every few decades are predicted, have been decreased for Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures.

 On the final day of a long weekend in Japan, however, there were still varying levels of evacuation alerts in effect for 9.6 million people.

 The warnings are not required, and officials have occasionally had trouble persuading citizens to leave their houses during severe weather events.

 I wasn't comfortable at home.

 

Yasuta Yamaguchi, 30, spent the night in a nearby motel in the Kagoshima prefecture town of Izumi to avoid the typhoon.

 

According to AFP, he said, "I came inside the hotel to shelter myself since it was windy and I thought it was unsafe."