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."
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