Typhoon Hagibis: Millions told to evacuate in Japan as powerful storm makes landfall

Typhoon Hagibis has made landfall in Japan, with strong winds and a heavy downpour battering Shizouka, southwest of Tokyo.

About three million people in Japan have been advised to leave their homes as strong winds and rains picked up before the typhoon even arrived.

An earthquake measuring 5.3, according to the US Geological Survey, shook the areas which had been drenched by rainfall. The earthquake was in the ocean off Chiba, near Tokyo.

A man in his forties has already been killed after his car overturned in a tornado east of Tokyo, while five others were injured as gales tore the roofs off a number of houses.

Typhoon Hagibis threatens to bring the heaviest rain and winds seen by Japan in 60 years and has triggered warnings of floods and landslides.

It comes after one of the strongest typhoons to hit the country in recent years destroyed or damaged 30,000 houses and caused extensive power cuts.

The latest storm has already led more than 16,000 households to lose power, while shops, factories and subways have been shut down as a precaution.

Organisers of the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix have cancelled all practice and qualifying sessions, while two matches of the Rugby World Cup have also been scratched.

England's match against France was cancelled, and the team has returned to Miyazaki where they held their pre-tournament training camp.

Japan's rugby team had to wade through high waters to get to their sodden pitch for practice, as their match against Scotland on Sunday could still go ahead if organisers believe it is safe.

More than 1,600 flights have been cancelled and train services suspended.

Tokyo Disneyland was also closed.

Some 17,000 police and military troops have been called up, standing ready for rescue operations, while dozens of evacuation centres have opened in coastal towns.

Hagibis, which means speed in Filipino, is expected to make landfall near Tokyo later, dumping up to 50cm (20ins) of rain.

Yasushi Kajihara, from Japan's meteorological agency, said: "Be ready for rainfall of the kind that you have never experienced. Take all measures necessary to save your life."

Evacuation centres have opened in coastal towns, with people taking refuge on floors and hoping their homes would be there when they return.

Yuka Ikemura, a 24-year-old nursery school teacher, is in an evacuation centre in Tokyo with her three-year-old son, eight-month-old daughter, and their pet rabbit.

She said: "I've got small children to take care of and we live on the first floor of an old apartment."

"We brought with us the bare necessities. I'm scared to think about when we will have run out diapers and milk."

A typhoon that hit the Tokyo region in 1958 left more than 1,200 people dead and half a million houses flooded.

Indeed, it is quite severe. Obviously the rugby is why we are here, but beyond that, I hope everyone gets through this okay. Never an easy thing to do though. I do feel it was irresponsible of World Rugby to arrange the World Cup in this venue without an emergency alternative, such as hosting games outside of the country. 

Look at he following article before the main typhoon hit the Tokyo area:-

 https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/typhoon-hagibis-path-update-live-latest-news-from-japan-as-hundreds-of-thousands-of-evacuations-a4259931.html 

The article was updated constantly and may even be worse now.   The island where the Welsh was playing was not affected as yet by the storm which is now moving towards it on the way to China. There was already a 40 km wind at the game anyway,   

I agree to an extent with you here,   World Rugby knew of the potential threat on Tuesday and could have rescheduled the games to be played on Monday or even Tuesday.  

However, a change of venue may not have been as easy as it would be in other countries,    However, why can play-off matches to be rescheduled and not pool matches?  

The fact is that the problem only had a bearing on Pool A - none of the other pools were really effected,   That is probably why they said originally the Sunday matches will be only considered tomorrow morning and we will see in about six hours what the decision is,   I do not think that there will be any games in the Tokyo area played,

Hard to tell how widespread this typhoon is.

This video suggest some isolated patches in the storm:

https://youtu.be/czizLiRZ988

and this shows a heavy downpour in one area

 https://youtu.be/27DPkpNSTug

yes agree poor planning... but given the two teams that conveniently miss their games is anyone else not surprised they get a week extra rest... 

logistics pretty hectic though and one thing about the japanee they like order and planning... last minute changes mess with them...

I saw it is on Sky, and it appears people are dying- and hundreds of thousands have been evacuated. All resources should be allocated to the Japanese people, and preserving life. Rugby is insignificant at this stage in comparison.

However, IRB could have made provisions to reschedule games rather than expecting a country dealing with a natural disaster to try to plan the movement of some rugby teams and spectators.

Four people were killed and 17 were missing after the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in decades paralysed Tokyo, flooding rivers and putting millions under evacuation warning before it ploughed up the north-eastern coast.

Authorities lifted rain and flood warnings for the Kanto region around a becalmed Tokyo before dawn on Sunday but imposed them on areas further north after super-typhoon Hagibis blasted through the capital.

Attention focused on Fukushima, where Tokyo Electric Power Co overnight reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water in its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Four people died in Chiba, Gunma, Kanagawa and Fukushima prefectures surrounding Tokyo, according to public broadcaster NHK. Among them was a man in his 60s who was found with no vital signs in a flooded apartment in Kawasaki, NHK said. Seventeen were missing early on Sunday, it said.

Evacuation orders had been issued to more than 800,000 households in Tokyo on Saturday as Hagibis threatened power cuts and widespread flooding.

Storm surges and high waves raised sea levels by more than a metre along some stretches of the coast, and waters in Tokyo Bay were up by 50cm, increasing the danger of severe flooding in the city centre.

The heavy rain caused a river in Nagano prefecture, north-west of Tokyo, to flood its banks. Some houses along the Chikuma river were nearly fully submerged in water and at least one person was rescued from the roof of a house by helicopter, NHK said. Part of a road was swept away in flooding.

Authorities issued evacuation advisories and orders for more than 6 million people across Japan as the storm unleashed the heaviest rain and winds in years. Some 80 injuries were reported while more than 270,000 households lost power, NHK said.

On Saturday the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a level-five warning, its highest, and urged more than 45 million residents of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures to find a secure building or move to higher floors. It lifted the alerts early on Sunday.

Authorities said they were planning to release water from the Shiroyama dam, 50km west of Tokyo, to reduce the risk of it bursting. They urged residents of six nearby towns to protect themselves as discharging water into an area already experiencing torrential rain was expected to cause severe flooding. About 17,000 military personnel were placed on standby for rescue operations.

The giant storm measuring 1,400km across and capable of producing 200km/h winds was compared to 1958’s typhoon Ida, which wrought destruction across the Greater Tokyo area and eastern Shizuoka prefecture, killing 1,200 people. The death toll is unlikely to be anywhere near as high this time thanks to Japan’s stringent building safety standards and comprehensive disaster warning systems. Emergency alerts accompanied by loud chimes were being sent direct to tens of millions of smartphone users in the affected areas.

By Saturday morning roofs had been ripped off houses in Chiba prefecture. This area, north-east of Tokyo, was still recovering from September’s typhoon Faxai which killed three people, injured more than 40 and left hundreds of thousands of homes without power.

On Saturday a 50-year-old man was killed in Chiba when his car was flipped over by the wind, while another person died after being washed away in a car, NHK said.

“When the winds suddenly hit they blew the roof off my house,” a resident told NHK. “The noise was awful. One of my three children was injured and is now in a hospital.”

Adding to the danger of landslides, an earthquake measuring four in Chiba on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, whose highest grading is seven, hit the Pacific Ocean at 6.22pm local time on Saturday.

Tokyo Disney Resort shut down on Saturday for the first time since the earthquake and resulting deadly tsunami in 2011 that killed nearly 20,000 people, while all bullet trains and most flights in and out of the greater Tokyo area and its surrounding prefectures were cancelled.

The Tokyo metropolitan government opened an evacuation centre in Tokyo’s Ueno district for foreign tourists stranded by the shutdown. Organisers cancelled Saturday’s qualifying session for the Suzuka grand prix, although the race was expected to take place on Sunday afternoon.

The England v France World Cup rugby game, due to have been played in Yokohama on 12 October, was cancelled the previous day. A decision on Sunday’s match between Japan and Scotland was due following an inspection scheduled late on Saturday night.

Scotland, who would be eliminated from the World Cup if the match were to be cancelled, called for the game to be switched to Monday. “Right from the get go, we said we would play any place, anywhere, behind closed doors, in full stadiums,” said Scottish Rugby’s chief executive, Mark Dodson.

Hagibis is expected to head out to sea on Sunday evening.

TheGuardian.com

More than 110,000 people are taking part in search and rescue operations after Typhoon Hagibis struck Japan on Saturday.

The typhoon - the worst storm to hit the country in decades - has left at least 40 dead, with 16 missing.

Typhoon Hagibis also caused the cancellation of three Rugby World Cup matches but a key match between Japan and Scotland went ahead.

Japan won 28-21 to reach the quarter-finals for the first time.

Afterwards, national team coach Jamie Joseph paid tribute to those affected.

"Everyone who is suffering with the typhoon, this game was all for you guys. The crowd was massive for us, and today was more than just a game," he said.

The typhoon has weakened and moved away from land but has left a trail of destruction.

Thousands of police officers, firefighters, coastguards and military are working to reach those trapped by landslides and floods.

The typhoon battered eight prefectures across Japan, with wind speeds of up to 225km/h (140mph).

In the central prefecture of Nagano, group of rescuers wearing snorkels and goggles began searching for survivors in waist-high water.

A train depot in Nagano was also flooded, causing 10 high-speed ("bullet") trains to be submerged. Each train has been valued at $30m (£23m).

The Prime Minister's Office of Japan said the rescuers would focus on "houses isolated by floods... and search for those unaccounted for".

AN EXTRAORDINARY FLOOD CONTROL SYSTEM
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC Tokyo Correspondent

There are many remarkable things about what has just happened in Japan. One is that Tokyo took a direct hit from the biggest storm in half a century, and survived pretty much unscathed.

That is a testament to Tokyo's extraordinary flood control system - an elaborate underground system of pipes big enough to fit an airliner through - which cost billions of dollars to build.

The second is the extent of the destruction - stretching right across Honshu, from Mie prefecture in the west, to Iwate in the north - an area equivalent to the whole of the United Kingdom.

Flooding has been worst in Nagano prefecture, an area deep in the mountains, more used to worrying about snow.

Typhoon Hagibis was not only exceptionally large, it came very late in the season. Japan's typhoon season used to last from July to September.

But it is getting longer, and the storms are getting bigger. A study published in 2015 found that since the late 1970s typhoons hitting the coastlines of east Asia had become around 15 % stronger, and the number of super typhoons had doubled.

Japan has probably the best flood defences of any country in Asia, if not the world. Tokyo's flood system is designed to withstand a once-in-a-hundred-years event.

But the rest of Japan - and other mega cities like Shanghai and Manila - are not nearly so well prepared.

Around 92,000 households remain without power - down from 262,000 households on Sunday - with 120,000 experiencing water outages.

More than seven million people were urged to leave their homes at the peak of the storm, but it is thought only 50,000 stayed in shelters.

The capital Tokyo was left relatively unscathed but other cities and towns across the country were inundated by water.

More than 1m (3ft) of rain fell in the town of Hakone, the highest total ever recorded in Japan over 48 hours.

In Nagano, levees along the Chikuma river gave way, sending flood water into residential areas.

It was only last month that Typhoon Faxai wreaked havoc on parts of Japan, damaging 30,000 homes, most of which have not yet been repaired.

BBC.co.uk